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CO
THE KING'S CLASSICS UNDER
THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF
PROFESSOR I. GOLLANCZ, Litt.D.
TEMPLE UPON THE GARDENS
OF EPICURUS, WITH OTHER
XVI Ith CENTURY GARDEN ESSAYS
 Also by A. Forbes Sie-vcking.
The Praise or Gardens (Dent).
 ^bammus GuUdmiu Temple EqwBawne&u*
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SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
UPON THE GARDENS
OF EPICURUS, WITH
OTHER XVII™ CENTURY
GARDEN ESSAYS : INTRO-
DUCTION BY ALBERT
FORBES SIEVEKING, F.S.A.

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS

LONDON, 1908
 The use of Gardens ... as it has been the inclination
of Kings and the choice of Philosophers, so it has been the
common favourite of public and private men ; a pleasure of
the greatest and the care of the meanest; and indeed an
employment and a possession for which no man is too high
nor Too low. — Sir William Temple.

In books and Gardens thou hast plac'd aright

Thy noble, innocent delight.
i never had any other desire so strong and so like to
covetousness, as that one which i have had always, that i
might be master at last of a small house and large garden.
— Abraham Cowley.

In Garden Delights it is not easy to hold a Mediocrity ;

that insinuating pleasure is seldom without some extremity.
— Sir Thomas Browne.

When we havemakes
Love hither run his
our best
passions' heat,
retreat.
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Andrew Marvei.l.

Our drift is a noble, princely and universal Elysium

capable of all the amenities there can naturally be intro-
duced into Gardens of pleasure, yet so as to become useful
and significant to the least pretences and faculties.
John Evelyn.
A BOOK ON SEVENTEENTH CENTURY GARDENS

DEDICATED
BY PERMISSION

TO

H.R.H. PRINCESS LOUISE, DUCHESS OF ARGYLL

WHOSE HOME IS THE GARDEN-PALACE OF KENSINGTON
LOVER OF ALL THE ARTS

NOT LEAST THE ONE NEAREST TO NATURE

THE ART OF GARDENS

X
 INTRODUCTION

The five writers, whose Garden Essays are here

presented in whole or abstract — Sir William Temple,
Abraham Cowley, Sir Thomas Browne, Andrew
Marvell and John Evelyn — may be said in their lives
to cover the whole of the Seventeenth Century (the
eldest being born in 1605, the last dying in 1706) ;
and in their writings to represent not only some of the
best of Garden, but of English, Literature. It would
not be easily possible to select five better names to
represent either the literature or the lives of great
Englishmen. Four out of the five were pre-eminently
men and citizens of the world, in the noblest and
richest sense ; one, Abraham Cowley, may be chosen as
the type of man to whom Retirement and Repose are
more congenial than Action. Temple, by his with-
drawal from public life at his meridian, stands in this
respect midway between Cowley on the one hand, and
Browne, Marvell and Evelyn on the other — all three
of whom strove to the end of their lives with the
xii INTRODUCTION

" Stream of the World," which, according to Goethe,

forms Characters, as distinguished from the Talent,
which is shaped "in der Stille."
In the present volume they have their place chiefly
as Garden lovers, or, to use Evelyn's words, as " Para-
disi Cultores — Paradisean and Hortulan Saints," and
only incidentally will they be referred to in any other
capacity.
This group of writers not only represents in Liter-
ature a distinct school of thought and action, with
views of life very closely akin, but also a definite
variation of the Garden- Art, from the spacious age of
Elizabeth and Bacon, which revelled in the terraced
and statued Architectural gardens of Italy, (derived
from the great Roman builders of Gardens,) and
adapted to English needs and taste. Passing through
the grand style of Le Notre — or the Horizontal garden
so characteristic of the ceremonial display of France
and its Grand Monarch, — the Revolution brings us
to the Dutch Regime, represented at its culminating
point in England by Hampton Court under London
and Wise ; and in Holland, whence the idee mere was
derived, by the princely gardens of Loo, Ryswick and
Hanslerdyck. This last phase might, I think, be
called the Canal type of Garden — since Water in
 INTRODUCTION xiii

straight channels and basins determines its main

features — and the straight and clipped (toped or
tonsured) hedges and trees are really subordinate to
the lines of water.1
In Gardening, which is eclectic and cosmopolitan,
more perhaps than in any other art, it is difficult to
draw hard and fast lines in discriminating styles and
schools. They overlap, merge and intersect — for
every man feels ancV to son pitton in his own
Garden, and every one with a garden loves to plan
and alter, and is not withheld from modifying and
changing the features of the ground and its design by
any sense of incapacity, such as he might feel were he
to essay to alter the elevation of a house, re-paint an
old master, or try his hand at chipping off bits of a
marble statue. This freedom in dealing with " the
art of landscape," when the materials are Nature's
own, has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows
scope for individual originality and enterprise, but it
also leads to the destruction of types and styles, which
another generation tries in vain to revive. What
would we not now give to see intact Pope's five acres
1 The present Editor has tried to sketch the literary and
engraved history of the early Dutch Garden in Holland, in
three Essays in " Country Life" (1905).
xiv INTRODUCTION

at Twickenham, as left by himself at his death and

described by John Serle so minutely, that I marvel no
Pope-lover has tried to restore it. Possibly the next
tenant, if an American of taste, may do so. It is
not that Pope's garden ideas would exactly chime with
ours, but his Garden would be an historical document
of priceless value, although the Grotto might strike us
now better suited to Rosherville — if that also were not
a delight of the Past.
We are accustomed to think of Dutch Gardening
as if it were introduced into England all at once
by William III. ; but a little historical enquiry will
show us that we had taken practical gardening lessons
from Holland as early as the reign of Elizabeth.
Thomas Fuller notes in his "Worthies" (1662)
that Gardening (in those early days it was of course
the Kitchen or utilitarian garden)
" was first brought into England for profit about seventy
years ago, before which we fetched most of our Cherries
from Flanders, apples from France, and had hardly a mess
of rathe-ripe pease but from Holland, which were dainties
for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear. Since Garden-
ing had crept out of Holland to Sandwich, Kent, and thence
into this County (Surrey), where though they have given
six pounds an aker and upwards they have made their rent,
lived comfortably, and set many people on work."

In this statement it looks as if Fuller's language

 INTRODUCTION xv

drew inspiration from Samuel Hartlib, or rather Child's

" Legacy of Husbandry," published in 1 65 1 : —
Because Gardening is of few years standing in England,
and therefore not deeply rooted, nor well understood.
About fifty years ago, about which time Ingenuities began
to flourish in England : This Art of Gardening, began to
creep intojEngland, into Sandwich, and Surrey, Fulham,
and other places.
Some old men in Surrey, where it flourisheth very much
at present ; report That they knew the first Gardiners that
came into those parts to plant Cabages, Colleflowers, and
to sow Turneps, Carrets, and Parsnips, to sow Raith (or
early ripe) Pease. Rape, all which at that time were great
rarities, we having few or none in England, but what came
from Holland and Flanders. . . .
We have not Gardening-ware in that plenty and cheapness
(unless perhaps about London) as in Holland, and other
places, where they not onely feed themselves with Gardiner's
ware, but also fat their Hogs and Cows.
We have as yet divers things from beyond seas, which the
Gardiners may easily raise at home, though nothing nigh
so much as formerly ; for in Queen Elizabeth's time, we had
not only our Gardiner's ware from Holland, but also
Cherries from Flaunders ; Apples from France ; Saffron.
Licorish from Spain ; Hops from the Low-Countreys : and
the Frenchman who writes the Treasure Politick saith,
That it's one of the great Deficiencies of England, that Hops
will not grow, whereas now it is known, that Licorish,
Saffron, Cherries, Apples, Pears, Hops, Cabages, of England,
are the best in the world. Notwithstanding we as yet
want many things as for example : We want Onnions, very
many coming to England from Flaunders, Spain, &c. ,
Madder for dying coming from Zurich-Sea by Zealand ; we
have Red Roses from France, Annice-seeds, Fennel-seeds,
Cumine, Caraway, Rice from Italy, which without question
would grow very well in divers moist lands in England :
xvi INTRODUCTION

yea Sweet Marjoram, Barley, and further Gromwell-seed

and Virga Aurea, and Would, from the Western Isles,
though they grow in our hedges in England.

Sir William Temple was born in the reign of

Charles I. in 1628, the year of Buckingham's assassin-
ation, and died in 1698, four years before his Royal
Master, William III.
Every one knows from Macaulay's " pictured page "
that Sir William negotiated the famous Triple Alliance
with Holland and Sweden in 1668, learnt from his
grateful Sovereign how to cut Asparagus in the Dutch
fashion, and finally, weary of diplomacy and etiquette,
retired Diocletian-like from Court and ceremony,
first to Sheen and later to his beloved More Park,
near Farnham in Surrey (no/ Moor Park in Hertford-
shire, the subject of his eulogy). Here he devoted
himself to a lettered leisure amid books and apricots,
pears and vines — took the losing side as the champion
of Antiquity in the great Book- War then raging
between the hosts of Ancients and Moderns (led by
the truculent scholar Bentley), which some of us still
look on safely from our arm-chairs in the satyric pages
of Swift's " Battle of the Books " ; and finally dving,
as he had lived, an Epicurean philosopher of the school
of Gassendi and St. Evremond, bequeathed his heart
 INTRODUCTION xvii

to the little spot of Mother Earth near the sun-dial in

the Garden he had cultivated and immortalised, while
by his own direction the rest of his ashes were deposited
in Westminster Abbey.
Temple's Essay is entitled " Upon the Gardens of
Epicurus," and over Temple's generation, as well as
over himself personally, the doctrine of Epicurus,
the Philosopher of the Garden, in one or other of its
Protean manifestations, was a dominating influence.
For Epicureanism is an elastic philosophy, stretching
from the varying heights of a Lucretius, a Gassendi,1
a Peiresc or a Temple, to the witty shallows of a
Grammont or the swinish depths of a Shadwell, a
Wycherley, and a Rochester. The name shelters
alike virtue and sensuality. Whether interpreted with
the urbanity and refinement of St. Evremond, or
the more sledge-hammer sensualism and self-interest
of Hobbes, the Philosophy of the Garden permeated

1 It is too much to expect that, even when Epicurus

comes into his own again, Gassendi's Dc Vita, Moribus, et
Doctrina EpUuri, which constituted him the Defender of the
Garden Faith, will ever become popular — although old
Dr. Charlton's Manual may ; but there is no reason why
a judicious and worthy reprint of Gassendi's Life of that
"Incomparable Virtuoso" Peiresc — "Englished" by Dr.
Rand and eulogised by Evelyn and Isaac Disraeli — should
not yield a substantial harvest.
xviii INTRODUCTION

both the thought and action of the cultured Carolines

and Jacobines. The Age, moreover, was an eclectic
one, wherein the world prenait son bien (ou son ma/)
oii on le trouvait ; and while some "sauntered" in
the Garden and inhaled its spiritual aroma, others
pondered in the Porch, and yet others lingered amid
the Groves of the Academy — according as they were
pleasurably, stoically, or platonically moulded. The
Lyceum alone attracted few loungers, for Aristotle
made too great demands upon the supine Spirit of the
Age. Among the more intellectual, the Academy
was in the ascendant ; indeed, Academies, in a general
sense, in some shape or other, seemed the Recreation
of the Contemplative Man, who preferred casting lines
for rational being6 to " compleatly " angling chubb.
Richelieu and Colbert's foundation of the French
Academies of Letters and Sciences, (based upon earlier
Italian models) and Mazarin's Library, had set a
fashion — for France under Louis XIV. was the law-
giver to Europe in matters of taste, culture and esprit.
Both Cowley and Evelyn, with many others, floated
schemes for the formation of Academies. Cowley's
foundered at his death, but Evelyn's finally resulted
in the establishment of that Royal Society — the god-
parent of all later Royal Institutions, of which Lord
 INTRODUCTION xix

Brouncker was the first President, Evelyn and Boyle

original Fellows, and Sprat, Bishop of Rochester
(Cowley's Biographer), the first Historian. Had the
Royal Society interpreted Science more liberally and
done its duty towards Letters as Evelyn desired and.
planned, the British Academy founded in 1904 would
not have been called upon to fill the vacuum it did in
regard to the literary and historical Sciences.
Almost there would seem to be some subtle psycho-
logical nexus between the Garden Spirit and the Soul
of Universities and Academies — the classic and sacred
Groves of Thought, Learning and " Impassioned
Contemplation" — for its reawakening or Pal'mgenesia
in our own generation synchronises with much ferment
in regard to the needs and obligations of Universities
and other allied and endowed Corporations. And per-
haps itis well that when the Schoolmaster and Professor
are abroad — the spirit and soul of Gardens should be
also alive and active. And everywhere it hovers around
us ! Whether it be manifested in the practical care
and culture of Gardens, and the revival of Garden
Aesthetic and Design, or take the purely lyrical form of
Henley's " Hawthorn and Lavender " : whether, like
Mr. Douglas Ainslie's lilting " Chinese Pleasaunce,"
it recalls the far-off charm of the willow-pattern and
xx INTRODUCTION

pagoda-garden of Cathay — which long swayed the

garden-design of Europe, as Chambers's Kew and
Essay on Chinese Gardening and P£re Attiret's
writings still testify — whether it steep you in the
Canary intoxication of Mrs. Stepney Rawson's mid-
Atlantic " Enchanted Garden," or twine about the ear
and memory in the honeysuckle tendrils of the Comtesse
Matthieu de Noailles' verse, or the cadences of Mrs.
Meynell's or Vernon Lee's prose, or merely buzzes
and flutters around in the anarithmic swarms of latter-
day Garden-Diaries — those twentieth-century " Books
of Beauty" —
O Jardins assouplis, pelouses caressees !

Everywhere in Life and Letters the Spirit of the

Time and of the Garden walk hand in hand and cast
their spell over our souls and bodies —
Tout englucs des teves du Jar din!

But let us stop rhapsodising and return to Temple.

One minor point in regard to Temple's work and
life need puzzle his readers no longer. The two
so-called Moor Parks — in Hertfordshire and Surrey
— were respectively Moor Park and More Park.
The house in which Temple last lived and died is
written thrice in his (probably) holograph Will, and
 INTRODUCTION xxi

always as Moreparke, or More Parke. Even T. P-

Courtenay, his most painstaking biographer, (whose
work was the text of Macaulay's rhetorical Review,)
confused the two, or rather believed there was only
one, and made Temple the purchaser of the Countess
of Bedford's property ; nay, in reprinting the Will he
once converts " More " into " Moore." This little fact
alone perhaps excuses the official copy of the Will
being given in its entirety.1 But lovers of the history
of our Literature will find a higher justification than a
lawyer's pedantry in the whole style of the Will —
cest de rhomme meme — Esther Johnson, Swift's Stella,
is described as " Servant to my sister GifFard " — how
the bitter taste must have made Jonathan wince ! The
name of Dingley occurs — Thomas Swift is one of the
witnesses — Jonathan Swift "now dwelling with me " -
is mentioned in the codicil for a legacy of ioo pounds
— and Temple specifies the exact spot where his

1 See Appendix to Introduction.

a " The fine gentleman " Temple "spoiled" — perhaps by
allowing himself to be addressed (June 1689) in an Ode as
learn d, good, and great — and as combining This great triumvirate
of Souls — Virgil, Epicurus and Caesar ! And Swift's self-dis-
paraging apostrophe is equally disproportioned —

Thy few ill-presented graces seem

To breed contempt where thou hadst hoped esteem.
xxii INTRODUCTION

heart is to rest in his garden l — the rest of his body

being bequeathed to Westminster Abbey. Surely this
transfigures a legal into a human document of poignant
literary associations.
Temple's prose has been praised by many critics in
varying voices. Hume, writing in an age when style
had sunk its individuality in the generic ; and, in
pursuit of colourless Ciceronianism, had lost the per-
sonal note and become de V 'epoque meme plutot que de
1 The versions of this affaire du cceur are various. Stephen
Switzer, in the valuable " History of Gard'ning " prefixed to
his Ichnographla Rusika, thought the heart was interred "in
his beloved Gardens at Sheen." Defoe's account (1748) is as
follows :—
About Two Miles from Famham is More-park, formerly
the Seat of Sir William Temple, who, by his Will, ordered
his Heart to be put into a China Bason, and buried under a
Sun-dial in his Garden, which was accordingly performed.
This House is situated in a Valley, surrounded on Every
Side with Hills, having a running Stream thro' the Garden,
which with a small Expence might be made to Serpentize
through all the adjacent Meadows, in a most delightful
manner.
While Cobbett in his Rural Rides writes :—
I would have showed him (his son) the garden-seat,
under which Sir William Temple's heart was buried, agree-
ably to his Will; but, the seat was gone, also the wall at
the back of it ; and the exquisitely beautiful little lawn in
which the seat stood, was turned into a parcel of divers-
shaped cockney-clumps, planted according to the strictest
rules of artificial and refined vulgarity.
 INTRODUCTION xxiii

j'/jomme, describes it as negligent and infected by

foreign idioms, but agreeable and interesting ; not like
the perusal of a book, but conversation with a com-
panion. Johnson hailed him as the first writer who
gave cadence to English prose and paid him the flattery
of imitation, as he did Sir Thomas Browne, with
perhaps even greater fidelity. One has but to com-
pare Temple's steady current, deserving Clarendon's
favourite epithet " flowing," with the comparatively
uneven and rugged periods of John Evelyn, or even
Clarendon himself, to feel the justice of Johnson's
judgment ; but the Doctor was perhaps a semi-tone
too dogmatic, and might have included Dryden among
the first of the prose prophets.
Swift dwells upon Temple's remarkable power of
adapting the style of his letters to the character cf his
correspondent, and declares that he advanced our Eng-
lish tongue to as great perfection as it can well bear.
Hallam thinks that he has less eloquence than Boling-
broke, but is free from his restlessness and ostentation.
Macaulay, with much condescension and generosity,
for he confesses frankly that he does not like Temple's
character — and Style, says a greater historian than
Macaulay, is the image of character — pronounces his
prose to be singularly lucid and melodious, superficially
xxiv INTRODUCTION

deformed by Gallicisms and Hispanicisms, but at

bottom pure English.
Lamb in his Essay on " The Genteel Style of
Writing," couples Lord Shaftesbury and Sir William
Temple, as representing respectively the lordly and
gentlemanly styles in writing, and contrasts the
"inflated finical rhapsodies" of Shaftesbury, (who
seems to have somewhat resembled Matthew Arnold
in the superior irony of his " Characteristicks " and
criticism, but could not attain his supreme height in
poetry,) with "the plain natural chit-chat" of Temple.
When we recall Coleridge's use of the same phrase in
regard to " the divine chit-chat " of Cowper's letters,
we see how relative to its age and the individual who
utters it, and how little final and absolute, all criticism
and verbal eulogy inevitably become. But all critics
unite in finding Temple entertaining, and at his best,
as in some of the passages quoted by Lamb, he rises
to a considerable height of philosophic and emotional
reflection. To-day it hardly seems as if " chit-
chat" best expresses the somewhat high-backed
and dignified conversation and well-bred familiarity
of Temple's dressing-gown discourses. But I be-
lieve that when the History of Conversation is at
last written, Temple's apophthegms and reflections
 INTRODUCTION xxr

upon the subject will come in for some measure of

attention.

" A swelled style," wrote Temple, in an early

essay at Brussels in 1652, "proceeds from a swelled
mind " ; and we may surely echo this two centuries
and a half later, although the modern echo might sound
rather like " swelled head" than " mind."

Sir Thomas Browne is as diffuse, desultory and

centrifugal a writer as Montaigne, and as fond of
marrowy classical quotations as old Burton ; but he is
more complicated, since he makes appeal and reference
to the sciences of the past and then present, as well as
to their literature. Thus he cannot embark upon the
Plants mentioned in Scripture, without a long prologue
asserting that all the other sciences and arts (astronomy,
surgery, rhetoric, mineralogy, navigation, &c.) may be
illuminated from the pages of Holy Writ, before he
arrives at the " expressions from plants elegantly
advantaging the significancy of the text."
Browne is prone to preface his Orations like the
advocate Petit Jean in Racine's comedy, Let Plaideurs
— " Avant la naissance du Monde " — and were we
not awed at his solemn sublimity, we might sometimes
be inclined, like the Judge in the same play, to implore
xxvi INTRODUCTION

him, with a yawn, to " Let us get along to the

Deluge " !
And what a deluge it is : what a torrent of
tempestuous language is poured down upon us from the
cumulus clouds of his vocabulary and learning !
It is a pity that in the present edition the text is
not set up in italics and capitals, to do the matter full
typographical justice : the majesty of Browne seems
to require the magnificence of large quarto page and
accessories to present him in his habit as he wrote.1
Upon reaching the gate of the " Garden of Cyrus "
(published in 1658) the natural first question a reader
will ask is, What is a Quincunx ?
Here is Browne's own grandiose definition : — " That
is the Rows and Orders so handsomely disposed, or
Five Trees so set together that a regular Angularity
and thorough Prospect was left on every side. Owing
this name not only unto the Quintuple number of Trees,
but the Figure declaring that Number which being
doubled at the Angle makes up the Letter X, that is
1 Those who would see Browne " in his habit as he
lived "should visit the Hall of University College, where
stands (or rather sits) the original model for the fine statue
of Browne by Mr. A. H. Pegram, A.R.A. , which, cast in
bronze, presides, urn in hand, over his own City of Norwich,
a place still, as in Evelyn's day, " much addicted to the
flowery part."
 INTRODUCTION xxv 3

the einphatical Decussation, or Fundamental Figure."

a writer of Sir Thomas's erudition, one
:ion enfolds and involves another, and we are
almost driven to explain Decussation — but refrain in
deference to the reader's wishes — and refer him to the
Diagram on our half-title (page 8-)and to the Oxford
Dictionary, from which the following is borrowed : —
" In Astrology, a Quincunx was an aspect of Planets
at a distance of 5 signs or 1 50 degrees apart, and the
simplest instance of a Quincunx is a die with 5 points
:•:" Philemon Holland's Pliny has "For the order
of setting Trees we ought to follow the usual maner
of chequer Row— called * Quincuncial.' "
Thus far I had written when in Vernon Lee's
delightful study of Compiegne and FontainebJeau 1 my
eye Kt on the expression ** the big Quincunxed
Palace," and of a sudden it was revealed to me how
the essence of Browne's "Quincuncial lozenge of
the Ancients " had been sucked and absorbed by his
contemporaries and successors to produce those radiat-
ing groves, plantations and labyrinths, which in the
map-like plates a vol tTmseau of Kip and Knyff show
1 No one who sympathises with the Genius of Gardens
in Italy.. France, Germany and Spain should fail to read
this writer's "Genins Loci," "Enchanted Woods," and
other studies breathing the true garden-spirit.
xxviii INTRODUCTION

us how the squires and land-owners of Great Britain

interpreted the delights of Parks, Gardens, and
especially Orchards 1 : and not only in Great Britain,
but at Versailles and throughout Europe — in these
Quincuncial " Forests " of the Louis Quartorzians.
" Great Parks mapped out and planted for Royal (and
seignorial) amusement: radiations of smooth white roads
from the big quincunxed Palace — (Chateau, Schloss,
Mansion or Manor) and then more radiations along
those wide grassy avenues, — green cuttings, when trees
are close, deep tracks in russet leaves, when they are

thin."
We may almost generalise the garden-problem in
the first half of the eighteenth century, by saying that
it lay in the embodiment and realisation of the
theoretical Quincuncial Park-Forest expounded by
Sir Thomas Browne and his disciples.
My readers I am sure would not thank me if I
withheld from them the opinions of " The Garden
of Cyrus" expressed by three Masters of English
letters and criticism, as separate in date, thought,
and expression as Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor

1 See Kip's and Knyff's copper-plates in " Theatrum

Magnae Britanniae " or Beeverel's " Devices de la Grande
Bretagne."
 INTRODUCTION xxix

Coleridge, and Walter Pater, who all agree upon this

subject.
Johnson writes —
In the production of this sport of fancy, he considers
every production of art and nature, in which he could find
any decussation or approach to the form of a Quincunx ;
and, as a man once resolved upon ideal discoveries seldom
searches long in vain, he finds his favourite figure in almost
everything, whether natural or invented, ancient or modern,
rude or artificial, sacred or civil ; so that a reader not watch-
ful against the power of his infusions would imagine that
decussation was the great business of the world, and that
nature and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and
imitate a Quincunx.

Coleridge says —
Browne's ingenuity discovers Quincunxes in heaven above,
Quincunxes in earth below, Quincunxes in the mind of man,
Quincunxes in bones, in optic nerves, in roots of trees, in
leaves, in everything.

And Walter Pater, in his urbane and gently guarded

way, as if loth to hurt Browne's feelings among the
Shades, but no less definitely, strikes the same note in
a passage of patrician prose : —
The Garden of Cyrus, though it ends indeed with a
passage of wonderful felicity, certainly emphasises (to say
the least) the defects of Browne's literary good qualities.
His chimeric fancy carries him here into a kind of frivolous-
ness, as if he felt almost too safe with his public, and were
himself not quite serious, or dealing fairly with it ; and in
a writer such as Browne levity must of necessity be a little
xxx INTRODUCTION

ponderous. Still, like one of those stiff gardens, half-way

between the mediaeval garden and the true "English"
garden of Temple or Walpole, actually to be seen in the
background of some of the conventional portraits of that
day, the fantasies of this indescribable exposition of the
mysteries of the quincunx form part of the complete portrait
of Browne himself; and it is in connection with it that,
once or twice, the quaintly delightful pen of Evelyn
comes into the correspondence1 — in connection with the
** hortulane pleasure."

Browne's Tract (or rather Letter) " Of Garlands

and Coronary or Garland Plants " was addressed to
John Evelyn, as we know from the autograph note in
the latter's copy, and was destined to be the nucleus
of the sixteenth chapter of his " Plan of a Royal
Garden," of which Evelyn's own " Acetaria " was the
only instalment ever published, though by no means all
prepared for publication.
Browne writes on Garlands in his flowing vein and
most magnificent manner — one feels he did his best
for Evelyn. By whom else but Browne — or perhaps
Samuel Johnson at his mightiest — could we see unrolled
before our eyes such a pompous pageant of epithets
as in the division of his subject into " Gestatory,
Portatory, Pensile (Suspensory) or Depository, Gar-
lands " — the very words seem woven into wreaths :
1 See letter to Sir T. Browne, post, pp, 175-182. j
 INTRODUCTION xxxi

and the superb subdivisions of " Compactile, sutile,

and plectile " — and again the proud procession of
triumphal adjectives, " they were convivial, festive,
sacrificial, nuptial, honorary, funebrial." In the con-
test between Latin rhetorical grandeur and Anglo-
Saxon naivete, the battle is not always entirely to the
simple and direct forms of expression. Hear Browne's
measured march once more — " Their honorary crowns,
triumphal, ovary, civical, obsidional." l
I am fully conscious of the disadvantages of giving
extracts only (however long and representative) of Sir
Thomas Browne's " Garden of Cyrus " and " Plants
mentioned in Scripture." But if they had been printed
in full, the quotations from Evelyn would have had
to be omitted or curtailed. I hope therefore I have
chosen the lesser evil. By printing the full Synopsis
and Argument at the head of each chapter of the
" Garden of Cyrus," the reader, who would have liked
more text, will be enabled to follow the thread of the
argument ; and in view of its extraordinary diffusecess,

1 If Sir L. Alma-Tadema had Browne's tract in his mind

(in addition to Athenius) when he painted his "Helio-
gabalus *' and his other Roman Coronary re-incarnations,
it is possible we have Browne's sonorous and trumpet-
toned adjectives translated into their equivalents of glowing
and richly harmonised colour !
xxxii INTRODUCTION

Sir Thomas Browne's work perhaps suffers less by

abridgment than that of most great writers.
His first Editor, Archbishop Tenison, expressly
forbears to range his Tract on " Plants " as a studied
and formal work, " which is but a collection of
Occasional Essays " ; and reminds us that " these
essays being letters, men are not wont to set down
oracles in every line they write to their acquaint-
ance." On one point I venture to differ from most
modern critics who look upon " The Garden of
Cyrus " as a piece of solemn jesting or deliberate
trifling on the part of its author. In my opinion,
Browne was in deadly earnest about his Quincunx.
His brain on this subject appears to have been fashioned
of the same fibre, as I imagine those of the old believers
in Astrology and Alchemy to have been. In some
respects Browne's ideas belonged rather to the
mediaeval than to the post-Baconian period — the
age in which indistinct ideas of authority, dogmatism
and mysticism were so curiously mingled, when the
belief in magic and witchcraft was still a prevalent form
of superstition,1 and when, as Whewell says, "men

1 See Mr. E. Clodd's admirable exposition of the Magic-

Problem in his article on "Magic and Religion " (Q. R.,
July 1907).
 INTRODUCTION xxxiii

associated moral, personal and mythological qualities

with terms of which the primary application was to
physical properties."
I must apologise also for the paucity of notes to Sir
T. Browne and Evelyn. It would have been quite
impossible to annotate these writers adequately without
the notes swamping the text. It therefore seemed
better to retain as much of the text as possible, omit-
ting even many of the notes of Browne's learned
Editor, Simon Wilkins, (whom the letters F. L. S.
may have qualified to shed light through the laby-
rinth of botanical terms) since it is for the lover of
garden literature rather than for the Botanist, that the
volume is destined. Satisfactory annotation would
have involved references to all the early Herbalists,
and most of the modern Biblical critics and exegetists.1
It was said by Johnson of Edmund Burke's con-
versation, that he wound into his subject like a serpent.
Browne's literary method might be likened rather to
the coils of the python or boa-constrictor involving it
in its Laocoonean embrace ; or like the Octopus — that
" travailleur de la mer " almost stifling and strangling
his subject in the gigantic tentacles of his style. At
1 At the end of the volume will be found a few bio-
graphical details of the chief Primitift of Botany.
C
xxxiv INTRODUCTION

least we feel that Browne belongs to the breed of the

Cyclopes — that muscular and monocular race of literary
giants, huge of biceps, if deficient in vision and subtlety,
of whom Johnson was the last and greatest repre-
sentative. But we are mixing our metaphors, and
♦'deranging our epitaphs."
Browne's interpretation of Scriptural plants may not
always be right according to the latest acceptance of
modern science and criticism, but he makes us think
and question, and thus suggests that nothing is final in
science or literature, that there is no literal and verbal
infallibility.
We may learn from him that every age requires to
re-investigate and re-discover the truth for itself —
even scientific truth being for the most part only relative
to its age and knowledge and not as so many of its
exponents think — absolute and final.
If Browne was credulous in some things, in others
he possessed the true and fertile spirit of scientific
scepticism — let us rather say, of investigation ; and no
one has more urbanely expressed the virtue of this
spirit as distinguished from the letter of dogmatism :
M And so observing this variety of interpretations
concerning common and known plants among us,
you may more reasonably doubt with what propriety
 INTRODUCTION xxxv

or assurance other less known be sometimes rendered

unto us."
May I here pause for a moment to interject the
observation that there are two works yet to be under-
taken for English Scholarship and Botany — one a com-
plete Bibliography Raisonnee, of works on Agriculture
of all ages and countries, like that of which Donaldson
has compiled an instalment, which, though imperfect
and inaccurate, remains the only attempt in English,
unless we except Sir Ernest Clarke's hitherto unpub-
lished lectures ; and secondly, a comparative Polyglot
Dictionary (such as the Syndics of one of our Uni-
versity Presses might well superintend) of all Botanical
terms from classical times, including Theophrastus,
Pliny, Virgil (Martyn's edition of the " Georgics "
comes to mind as a valuable contribution), and the
writers " De Re Rustica et Hortensi,'^ through the
mediaeval and later Herbalists (of whom Dr. J. F.
Payne, the distinguished Harveian Librarian, has
made such scholarly studies), Parkinson and Hartlib,
Ray, Weston, Linnaeus and De Jussieu to our own
day.
Browne's frequent citations from Theophrastus
bring afresh to our notice the curious fact that the
English language has never possessed a complete
xxxvi INTRODUCTION

translation of his " De Plantis " ; and yet Theo-

phrastus's work is the prototype and direct progenitor
of the mediaeval and modern Herbals, most of which
have incorporated his doctrines.
For the mental struggle he has had to undergo
between the rival claims of text and notes — the Editor
while deciding in favour of more text hopes the critics
will give him credit for great self-denial.
Think for instance of the corrections of spelling
and the scope for historical garden-lore in Evelyn's
"Summ of the Heads" of Chap. VII. lib. 3. of
his projected " Elysium Brittannicum " [post, pp.
178-182); or of the "note long drawn out" which
might have been written upon March-Payne, casually
mentioned by Evelyn at p. 175, and still dear to natives
of North Germany as " Marzipan " !— Why, the
Elizabethan dramatists alone would furnish a quarto
of quotations upon St. Mark's Bread (Marci Pants) !
What an opportunity for erudition do the names
Laurembergius and Jacob Bobart, and Curtius de
Hortls offer ! Here is a sample of what might
have been served up to the reader from this Hortus
Siccus : —

Pierre (Petras) Laurembergius, son of Gulielmus Laurem-

bergius (Physician and Mathematician, born 1547, died
 INTRODUCTION xxxvii

1612; rector of Rostock University), taught philosophy at

Montauban, composed the Treatise " De Horti Cultura "
alluded to by Sir T. Browne, and died in 1639.

or the following more " fleshy " anecdote about old

Jacob Bobart, from " Historical and Biographical
Sketches of the Progress of Botany," by Richard
Pulteney, M.D., F.R.S. (Lond., 1790) : —
I cannot ascertain the time of Bobart's death ; but from
the story related of him by Dr. Grey, in his edition of
•' Hudibras," Part I., Canto II., 1. 314, he must have been
living in 1704.1 He had transformed a dead rat into the
feigned figure of a dragon, which imposed upon the learned
so far, that several fine copies of verses were wrote on " so
rare a subject." Bobart afterwards owned the cheat; but
it was preserved for some years, as a masterpiece of art.
There is a print of the elder Bobart, with a distich, dated
1675, by Burghers, which confirms his German origin ;
but it is very scarce.

1 He appears to have lived considerably longer, for Dr.

Abel Evans dedicated " Vertumnus," a poetical epistle, to
him in 171 3 — which contains much historical information.
Bobart had formed an Hortus Siccus in twenty volumes. He
is several times mentioned in these letters of Consul Sherard
to Dr. Richardson, that in March I7i9the Vice-Chancellor
(Dr. Shipper) had compelled Bobart to resign the office of
Professor, and also records his death, which happened in a
very advanced age, a few months after. He was buried
Dec. 30, 1 719. A descendant of this family, Tillemant
Bobart, is still well known to all who wish for civil treat-
ment and a safe carriage on the road to Oxford. — " Nichols's
Illustrations of Literary History," Vol. I., pp. 342, 357, 361.
(MS. Note by Win. Forsyth in B. M. copy.)
xxxviii INTRODUCTION

Browne's " Observations on Grafting," probably

written at Evelyn's request for inclusion in his
" Elysium Brittannicum," have interest as showing the
position which Botanical Science had attained in the
seventeenth century on the "doctrine of insitions "
— in regard not only to " hortensial plants," but
to all sorts of shrubs and trees, " whereby we might
alter their tempers, moderate or promote their virtues,
exchange their softness, hardness and colour, and so
render them considerably beyond their known and
trite employments." It may be interesting to some of
my readers to compare Bacon's observations on graft-
ing with those of Browne, so I transcribe the follow-
ing passages from the great philosopher's " Sylva
Sylvarum," only premising that Bacon conveyed
some of his botanical experiences, without acknowledg-
ment, from the pages of Baptista Porta's "Natural
Magick " :—
There is no doubt but that grafting (for the most part),
doth meliorate the fruit. The cause is manifest ; for that
the nourishment is better prepared in the stock than in the
crude earth ; but yet note well that there are some trees that
are said to come up more happily from the kernel than from
the graft ; as the peach and the melocotone. . . .
It hath been received, that a smaller pear grafted upon a
stock that beareth a greater pear, will become great. But
I think it is as true as that of the prime fruit upon the late
stock, and e converso, which we rejected before ; for the
 INTRODUCTION xxxix

scions will govern. Nevertheless, it is probable enough,

that if you can get a scion to grow upon a stock of another
kind, that is much moister than his own stock, it may
make the fruit greater, because it will yield more plentiful
nourishment ; though it is like it will make the fruit baser.
But generally the grafting is upon a drier stock ; as the
apple upon a crab, the pear upon a thorn, &c. Yet it is
reported, that in the Low Countries, they will graft an apple-
scion upon the stock of a colewart, and it will bear a great
flaggy apple, the kernel of which, if it be set, will be a cole-
wart, and not an apple. It were good to try whether an
apple-scion will prosper, if it be grafted upon a sallow, or
upon a poplar, or upon an alder, or upon an elm, or upon
an horse-plum, which are the moistest of trees. I have heard
that it hath been tried upon an elm and succeeded.
It is reported also that a citron grafted upon a quince
will have small or no seeds ; and it is very probable that
any sour fruit grafted upon a stock that bareth a sweeter
fruit, may both make the fruit sweeter and more void of the
harsh matter of kernels or seeds.

By those who would pursue further the comparative

study of " imping " (as William Lawson and his con-
temporaries called it) — evidently begotten from the
German Impfen, to inoculate ; begetting in turn our
word " imp," a graft or off-shoot of Satan — interest-
ing historical references may be found in Crescentiis,
Baptista Porta, Parkinson, Leonard Meager's " Arte
of Planting and Grafting," in William Lawson, and
in Evelyn's translation of De Quintinye's " Fruit
Gardener/' ; as well as in Switzer, Philip Miller,
Dr. Gibson, Forsyth, and innumerable later writers.
xl INTRODUCTION

Unfortunately we have nothing in English agricultural

literature to compare with the monumental edition
of Olivier De Serres' «' Theatre de l'Agriculture,"
prepared in 1804 under the all-embracing auspices of
Napoleon's genius, to which all the scientific intellect
of France contributed annotations and ameliorations,
forming, as it were, the tribute of his sons in science
to the glory of the Father of French Agronomists
and Modern Agriculture, whom our own Arthur
Young delighted to honour.
We have it on Cowley's authority 1 — and Cowley
by his long and early poem on Plants, anticipating
Erasmus Darwin's once highly-prized but now un-
duly-neglecteBotanical
d" Garden," earned a right to
an opinion upon the subject — that
We nowhere Art do so triumphant see,
As when it grafts or buds the tree.

The question of grafting or hybridising plants is

treated in a curiously similar way by Shakespeare in
"The Winter's Tale" (Act IV. scene iii.), in a
dialogue between Polixenes and Perdita. The latter
expresses her contempt for
Carnations and streak'd gilly-flowers,
Which some call nature's bastards :

1 See post, p. 81.

 INTRODUCTION xli

and on being asked by Polixenes why she neglects

them, Perdita replies :—
For I have heard it said,
There is an art which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.
Pol. Say, there be ;
Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean ; so, o'er that art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock ;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race ; this is an art
Which does mend nature, — change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.1

Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, Cowley's first editor,

finds that Cowley's ideas are sometimes conceived and
expressed in the best manner of Shakespeare, and
certainly points of similarity to the above are to be
found in Cowley's lines upon grafting, where he says : —
It imitates her Maker's Power Divine,
And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine.

■ For this reference I am indebted to my old friend, who,

by his recent election to the Chair of Zoology at Cam-
bridge, has revived and continues the century-old associa-
tions of the name, Professor Adam Sedgwick, with Trinity
College and the University. He drew my attention to its
important philosophical bearing, as showing Shakespeare's
idea that fundamentally Art and Nature are not essentially
distinct. Sir Ray Lankester, in his Romanes Lecture, re-
printed in " The Kingdom of Man," also alludes to the
same passage.
xlii INTRODUCTION

Browne (see post, p. 13+), quoting the ancient doctrine

of Theophrastus,1 speaks of the system eulogised by
Polixenes as " agreeable with our present practice,
who graft pears on thorns, and apples upon crab
stocks, not using the contrary insition."
From a sympathetic monograph on Sir Thomas
Browne, kindly sent me by its author, Dr. William
Osier, the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, and
the possessor of the most complete collection of early
editions of Browne's works, I learn that he con-
tributed liberally to his old school at Winchester, to
the rebuilding of the library of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and to the repairs at Christchurch, Oxford.
I also borrow the following account from Dr. Osier
of the contemporary portraits of Browne : —
" There are three good portraits of Sir Thomas — ■
one in the College of Physicians, London, which is
the best known, and has been often reproduced, and
from which is taken the frontispiece in Greenhill's
edition of the ' Religio Medici ' ; a second is in the
Bodleian, and this also has been frequently reproduced ;
the third is in the vestry of St. Peter's Mancroft,
Norwich. In many ways it is the most pleasing of

1 De Caus'ts Plant., lib. i., cap. 7.

 INTRODUCTION xliii

the three. There is a fourth picture, the frontispiece

to the fifth edition of the ' Pseudodoxia,' but it is so
unlike the others that I doubt very much if it could
have been Sir Thomas." l
Many have discovered a physical likeness to Shake-
speare— some, indeed, to Christ — in Browne's portraits.
Taine has discerned in his productions a mental like-
ness, a kindred spirit, to Shakespeare, "who, like
him, applies himself to living things, penetrates their
internal structure, puts himself in communication with
their actual laws . . . discerns behind visible phe-
nomena a world obscure, yet sublime, and trembles
with a kind of veneration, before the vast, indistinct,
but populous abyss, on whose surface our little universe
hangs quivering." l
Here I can do no more than allude -'with gratitude
to Mr. Edmund Gosse's volume on Browne in the
" English Men of Letters Series," one of the many
in which he has illumined English Literature.
The two garden poets of our collection, Abraham
Cowley and Andrew Marvell, were, in spite of their
closeness of age and similarity of education, of very
different poetical complexion. Cowley, the elder by
1 " Religio Medici": An Address delivered at Guy'.-
Hospital, 1905. Reprinted from " The Library," Jan. 1906.
xliv INTRODUCTION

three years, was born in 1618, and died at the age

of forty-nine, eleven years before Marvell, who lived
till 1678, thus reaching the age of fifty-seven. Both
were scholars of Trinity College, Cambridge, Cowley
in 1637, the year in which Marvell (who took his
B.A. degree in 1638) contributed verses to " Musa
Cantabrigiensis." But Marvell then travelled abroad
and took the Puritan side in the great Civil struggle,
whereas Cowley resided at Cambridge, composing
comedies in Latin and English till he was ejected by
the Parliament in 1644. He then migrated to St.
John's College, Oxford, till he went abroad as
secretary to Henrietta Maria, Marvell filling a like
office in conjunction with Milton, as Latin secretary
to Cromwell. Cowley remained a keen if somewhat
timid Royalist, and issued a Pindaric ode against
Cromwell, whereas Marvell published an Horatian ode
in his favour. Cowley's own age hailed him in turn
as its Anacreon, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, and
especially its Pindar. His " Pindarique Odes " were
regarded as productions of a genius little inferior to
that of his model. In fact his biographer Sprat
attributes the great boldness of Cowley's metaphors
and the length of his digressions to Pindar himself.
Possibly next year's revival of the Olympic Game
 INTRODUCTION xlv

will lead to a renewal of interest in Cowley's Olym-.

pique and Neraean Odes, and to a demand for the
new edition which the Cambridge University Press
has just issued. A worse thing might happen than
that, as a stimulus to our laureates of all degrees, a
prize should be decreed to the best Ode written " in
imitation of the style and manner," not of Pindar,
but of Cowley.
Satire was one of the few literary genres which
Cowley did not attempt, whereas Marvell's irony
was of the savage school of Juvenal or Swift, rather
than of the more urbane Horace. The Latinity of
both was on a high level. Cowley's verse was often
highly charged with conceits, somewhat metaphysical,
and his eulogies and panegyrics carried flattery to its
full flight on far-fetched and soaring metaphor —
although he could at times be natural, simple, and full
of feeling, as in his elegy on the death of his friend
William Harvey, which here and there strikes a tone
as deep and true as the Thyrsis of Matthew Arnold.
But of Hobbes he writes : —
I never yet the Living Soul could see
But in thy books and thee.

Falkland, of whom, as Bishop Sprat tells us, "he

had the entire friendship — an affection contracted by
xlvi INTRODUCTION

the agreement of their learning and manners " — he

adulates with more pardonable hyperbole :—
Learning would rather chuse
Her Bodley, or her Vatican to lose;
All things that are but writ and printed there,
In his unbounded breast engraven are.

And before Pope, he discovered that

Let Nature and let Art do what they please,
When all's done Life is an incurable Disease.

As writers in praise of Gardens and Country

life, the palm will, I think, be given by all modern
readers to Andrew Marvell. Genuine as is the love
of both for the Country — and to Cowley the desire
for retirement and repose was assuredly no pose —
Cowley's voice is that of the scholar and the student,
and his verse smells of the lamp and grates of the
file, while Marvell's song brings the magic of the
meadow, the breath of the flowers and new-mown
hay, the swish of the scythe, and the lamp of the
glow-worm right across the centuries, before our eyes
and into our hearts — and we love Marvell's poems,
while at the best we can only admire and sympathise
with Cowley's verse.
The latter's elaborate set-piece on Plants we re-
cognise at once for what it purported to be, viz. an
 INTRODUCTION xlvii

elaborate treatise in the Virgilian manner upon Botany

and the Physic Garden ; it was indeed Cowley's
contribution to the Literature of Medicine. It is
interesting as the forerunner of Erasmus Darwin's
" Botanical Garden " l and Goethe's " Metamorphosis
of Plants," - to name only two of the more famous
attempts to poetise the science of Botany. We quote
Cowley's own pharmaceutical metaphor : " The two
little Books" (subsequently expanded into six) "are
offer'd as small Pills made up of sundry Herbs,
and gilt with a certain brightness of Style ; he does
not desire to press out their Liquor crude in a simple
enumeration, but as it were in a Limbeck by the
gende Heat of Poetry to distil and extract their
Spirits."
As I have said so much about this poem, it is per-
haps only fair to Cowley and to the reader, to give
a specimen of it ; and I take his comparison of a
Walnut with the Brain-pan of a man, as typical
alike of the ingenuity of Cowley, of the medical
tendency of the poem, and of the treatment of his
1 It is curious that Krause, when discussing the genesis
and predecessors of Darwin's poem, omits all mention of
Cowley's, which had strong affinity with it.
2 So admirably translated by Professor Blackie in his
"Wisdom of Goethe."
xlviii INTRODUCTION

theme, which looks as if he accepted the Doctrine of

Signatures : —
Nor can this Head-like Nut, shap'd like the Brain
Within, be said that Form by chance to gain,
Or Caryon1 call'd by learned Greeks in vain.
For Membranes soft as Silk, her Kernel bind,
Whereof the inmost is of tendrest kind,
Like those which on the Brain2 of Man we find ;
All which are in a Seam-join'd Shell enclos'd,
Which of this Brain the Skull may be suppos'd.
This very Skull envelop'd is again
In a green Coat, his Pericranion.
Lastly, that no Objection may remain,
To thwart her near Alliance to the Brain ;
She nourishes the Hair, remembring how
Herself deform'd without her leaves does show : '-
On barren Scalps she makes fresh Honours grow. J

I ought to add that Cowley wrote the poem in

Latin, and the translation of Book V., from which
the above is extracted, was the work of Nahum Tate,
who succeeded Shad well as Poet- Laureate in 1690,
having in 1697 published a poem on the "Art of
Angling " which went into several editions, but which
I do not remember Mr. Andrew Lang baiting his
literary hook with.
Cowley's ashes were deemed worthy to rest in.
Westminster Abbey, near those of Chaucer and

1 Kdpvuv = a nut.
2 Mater pia and dura Mater. — Cowley's Note.
 INTRODUCTION xlix

Spenser, and the King delivered himself of what

Sprat considered his best epitaph : " that Mr. Cowley
had not left a better man behind him in England."
Perhaps a more fitting one were the words of his
brother poet, Sir John Denham : —
Horace's Wit and Virgil's State
He did not steal, but emulate :
And when he would like them appear,
Their Garb, but not their Cloaths did wear.

In Marvell's poem, "Upon Appleton House,"

addressed to Lord Fairfax, in Hudibrastic metre, (tco
long to quote at length,) are continuous allusions to
Gardens. One of the early owners, it seems, had a
touch of Uncle Toby in his composition: —
Who, when retired here to peace,
His warlike studies could not cease ;
But laid these gardens out in sport
In the just figure of a fort ;
And with five bastions it did fence
As aiming one for ev'ry sense.

See how the flow'rs as at parade

Under their colours stand displaid ;
Each regiment in order grows.
That of the tulips, pinke and rose.

Tulips, in several colours barr'd,

Were then the Switzers of our Guard.1

1 Allusion to the Papal Swiss Guard, whose striped

uniforms still in use were designed by Michael Angelo.
d
1 INTRODUCTION

The Gardiner had the Souldier's place,

And his more gentle forts did trace ;
The Nursery of all things green
Was then the only magazeen.

We may not linger longer with the Laureate of the

lowly Glow-worm, but follow loftier Lights, who
Aa/X7raSia t^ovres SiaStoo-ouo-iv dAA.17A.01s.
In Temple we saw a retired Statesman and
Diplomatist devoting his leisure to Gardening. The
practice of Politics was one of the few forms of action
that John Evelyn took no lively share in — though he
was too much a Civis Mundi not to be intellectually
interested in that, as in most other things. Unlike
Edmund Burke, who also, as we learn from his cor-
respondence with Arthur Young, busied himself with
practical farming, and in politics, according to Gold-
smith,
Narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up, what was meant for mankind.

Evelyn made mankind his constant study, and no one

better fulfilled Terence's maxim, as was abundantly
testified by his anxiety about the condition and relief
of the poor discharged seamen, when he was appointed
Commissioner for the Care of the Sick, Wounded, and
Prisoners in the Dutch War.
 INTRODUCTION li

Bookman and library-lover as he was, Grolier's

generously genial motto, Sibi et Amicis, would not have
sufficed the large-hearted and -minded Evelyn, for
whom Mundo et Sibi would have better expressed his
far-reaching humanity. Not only may he stand for
the fine flower of English gentlehood of his day, but
he offers the broadest and fullest example of Carolean
culture and conduct, as Sidney fitly represents these
qualities in the Elizabethan period. It is true that
none of Evelyn's numerous writings scales the poetic
peaks of Sidney's " Arcadia " — nor glows with the
fiery fervour of his " Defence of Poesie." In Evelyn,
the chivalry and urbanity of his character and style —
interchangeable words — are toned and tinctured by
something of the chill autumnal hues of Puritan
austerity — or are modified by the sweet seriousness, as
well as reasonableness of Falkland, who died a martyr
to moderation and the middle course. Although Evelyn
held aloof from the storm and stress of politics and
revolution, and as a moral-minded man was revolted
by the scandalous licence and dissoluteness of Charles's
Court, he was a trusted adviser to Charles II. and his
brother ; and as Member of the Council of Foreign
Plantations (or as we should now say, of the Colonies)
and a Commissioner of the Privy Seal, he served both
lii INTRODUCTION

Sovereigns ; in brief, as Sir Leslie Stephen writes

rather irreconcileably, he was a hearty but cautious
Royalist. The libertine levity of the Restoration
reaction, its assertion of the " Will to Live," and to
enjoy life in its porcine way, was an offence to his
delicacy and refinement.
Of the many subjects touched with his hand or pen,
there was hardly one to which he did not lend lustre,
for his own age at least. In nearly all he was a
teacher, a friend of those who would " live in the
spirit," or excel in the artistry of life. Whether the
subject were Painting, Architecture, Forestry, Agri-
culture, Gardens, Engraving, the installation or
foundation of Libraries, Religion, Commerce,
Lucretius's great Epicurean poem, the formation of
the Royal Society, the rebuilding of London, the
structure of the Earth, the abolition of the Smoke
nuisance — even the fashions, follies and dress of his
generation — in one and all he was an originator, a
pioneer, a reformer, or a meliorator — either by his
own example and in his own person, by his writings,
or the interpretation of other men's. To few men has
it been granted to spread so wide a range of excellence
over so long a life and so many different branches of
art and literature ; and to crown all, he has left in his
 INTRODUCTION liii

Diary, as an eye-witness, a commentary on the Life

and History of his generation, second only, in relation
to its age, to the Annals of Tacitus or the Memoirs of
Saint-Simon.
As Treasurer to Greenwich Hospital and in other
administrative offices, he was often in close touch
with Charles II., who highly valued his opinion, and
was actually persuaded by Evelyn's advice to introduce
a permanent standard and style for men's dress — but
the inconstant King altered the fashion again within
the year. Of most of the great intellects of his day —
British and Foreign — Boyle, Bentley, Wotton, Sir
Thomas Browne, Gassendi, Peiresc, Wren, Pepys,
Meric Casaubon, Clarendon, Cowley, Wilkins, Jeremy
Taylor, Dugdale, Hollar, Gibbons — Evelyn was the
friend, the correspondent, or the patron.
Oxford owes to him the Arundel marbles, and other
benefactions to Museum and Library; he was one of the
Founders, for a year the Secretary, and twice refused the
Presidency, of the Royal Society — besides contributing
many papers to its Philosophical Transactions ; and in
its archives may still lurk Lord Sandwich's descriptions
of the Gardens and Villas of Spain, which he, when
Ambassador, sent Evelyn, from Madrid — "many sheets
of paper written in his own hand " — although the Sem-
liv INTRODUCTION

brador or Plough, which Evelyn gave to the Society,

and described in its " Transactions," is probably long
since broken up for firewood.
His translation of the five remaining books of Lu-
cretius (he published two editions of his version of
Book I. ) possibly " still lies in the dust of my study,
where it is likely to be for ever buried " (Letter to
Meric Casaubon from Sayes Court: July 15, 1674) ;
and possibly in the Library at Wotton (for I have
ascertained from Professor Church it is not in the

keeping of the Royal Society) reposes Evelyn's

translation of Naude " On Libraries," which he had
himself prepared for a second impression, having sup-
pressed as many copies as he could of the imperfect
and badly-printed first issue.
In short, Evelyn proved the possibility of being both
a citizen of the world and a true patriot — and in his
own person identified these usually irreconcilable roles.
He was a signal instance of self-respect earning the
respect of his race.
Love for his character has led me somewhat from

the path — the garden-path — of Evelyn's • hortulan '

career. His " Kalendarium Hortense" and "Ace-
taria ; or Discourse of Sallets " have been often
reprinted and commented upon in Books of Gardening
 INTRODUCTION lv

and Gastronomy ; and his " Sylva " — although the last
and best edition by Dr. A. Hunter, F.R.S., of York,
was published in 1 786 — still remains one of the classics
— certainly the literary classic — of its subject. I have
therefore chosen for reproduction here — and I hope
the Garden-maniac '(the word is not mine, but the
Prince de Ligne's!) will approve my selection — his
more important letters on the history and literature of
Gardens — his Scenario or Epitome of a History of
Gardens — which will be of priceless suggestion to the
Historian of Gardens, when he shall at last appear ;
and, finally, the descriptions of Gardens in England
and on the Continent, which he visited throughout his
travels — one may almost say, throughout the long
journey of his life.
0 si sic omnes ! If peradventure one "righteous"
traveller and Garden fanatic — and their number is
legion — would so describe the gardens of our own
generation — not only as " Country Life " is doing
it in word and picture — fine as that is— but in the
true spirit of that observer and chronicler, John Evelyn.
With all our interest, real and assumed, in Gardens, I do
not know of any lately published account of Gardens in
Britain or abroad that will be to future generations of
quite the living and abiding historical and archaeological
lvi INTRODUCTION

value, that these scattered notices of Evelyn possess fo

us. A century later Arthur Young followed in his
footsteps, and to some extent achieved a similar result,
but his object was rather the observation and improve-
ment of the Science of Agriculture than the Fine Art
of Gardening.
The "Plan of a Royal Garden," or Elysium
Brittannicum (perhaps inspired by Bacon), is a magnifi-
cent synopsis or torso, to which it is not too late to
hope that other fragments, (besides the " Acetaria " and
Browne's treaties on ** Grafting " and " Garlands,"
printed hereafter,) may yet be restored : for that same
library at Wotton may one day yield up to a patient
and grateful posterity the MS. which, we have
Evelyn's own word for it, he left in a more or less
complete state. In his letter to Sir Thomas (then
Dr.) Browne he writes of having " tolerably finished "
as far as Chapter XL, Lib. II.,1 which is " Of Statues,
Busts, Obelisks," &c. ; 2 and says definitely that Chapter
VII. of the last Book. " is in a manner finished." The
contents of this important chapter are fully set out in
his Postscript (pp. 178-182), and this alone would be
an inestimable gift to the lover of Garden History.
Evelyn was not only a writer, but a prophet. In
1 See post, p. 177. 2 Ibid., p. 195.
 INTRODUCTION lvii

one of his lesser- known writings, " Fumifugtum : or the

Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoke of London dissi-
pated," he not only anticipates the labours of the Kyrle
Society, or that for the Abatement of the Smoke
Nuisance, but he has forestalled Mr. Ebenezer Howard
in his plan for the creation of Garden Cities.
London was to have been the first great Garden
City, and by this means the Smoke of London was to
be neutralised and abated.
The quotation is rather lengthy, but nothing could
better represent Evelyn's dual character as a lover of the
City and of the Country alike : if his plan could have
been realised, the separation of the two would have
almost ceased to exist. — Those who dispute his claim to
be ranked amongst the Prophets, will not deny Evelyn's
right to canonisation amongst his own Parodist Cultoret
— Paradisean and Hortulan Saints.
His proposed remedy was : —
That all low grounds circumjacent to the city, especially
east and south-west, be cast and contriv'd into square plots,
or fields of twenty, thirty and forty akers or more, separated
from each other by fences of double palisads, or contr'-
spaliars, which should enclose a plantation of an hundred
and fifty, or more, feet deep about each field ; not much
unlike to what his Majesty has already begun by the wail
from old Spring Garden to St. James's in that park; and is
somewhat resembled in the new Spring Garden at Lambeth.
That these palisads be elegantly planted, diligently kept and
lviii INTRODUCTION

supply'd, with such shrubs as yield the most fragrant and

odoriferous flowers, and are aptest to tinge the Aer upon
every gentle emission at a great distance : such as are (for
instance among many others) the sweet-brier, all the
periclymena's and woodbines ; the common white and yellow
jessamine, both the syringa's or pipe trees; the guelder rose,
the musk, and all other roses ; genista hispanica : to these
may be added the rubus odoratus, bayes juniper, lignum-vit«e,
lavender : but above all, rosemary, the flowers whereof are
credibly reported to give their scent above thirty leagues off
at sea, upon the coasts of Spain : and at some distance
towards the meadow side, vines ; yea, hops
Et arbuta passim,
Et glaucas salices, casiamque crocumque rubentem,
Et pinguem tiliam, & ferrugineos hyacinthos.

For there is a sweet smelling sally,1 and the blossoms of

the tilia or lime-tree,2 are incomparably fragrant ; in brief,
whatsoever is odoriferous and refreshing.
That the spaces or area between these palisads and
fences, be employ'd in beds and bordures of pinks, carnations,
clove, stock-gilly-flower, primroses, auriculas, violets, not
forgetting the white, which are in flower twice a year, April
and August : cowslips, lilies, narcissus, strawberries, whose
very leaves as well as fruit emit a cardiaque, and most
refreshing halitus : also parietaria lutea, musk lemmon, and
mastick, thyme, spike, cammomile, balm, mint, majoram,
pempernel, and serpillum, &c. which, upon the least pressure
and cutting, breathe out and betray their ravishing odors.
That the fields, and crofts within these closures, or
invironing gardens, be some of them planted with wild thyme,
and others reserved for plots of beans, pease (not cabbages,
whose rotten and perishing stalks have a very noisom and

1 Sallow or willow.
2 It has been conjectured that probably the lime-trees in St.
James's Park were planted in consequence of this suggestion.
 INTRODUCTION lix

unhealthy smell, and therefore by Hypocrates utterly con-

demned near great cities) but such blossom-bearing brain as
send forth their virtue at farthest distance, and are all of them
marketable at London ; by which means, the aer and winds
perpetually fann'd from so many circling and encompassing
hedges, fragrant shrubs, trees and flowers, (the amputation
and pruning of whose superfluities may in winter, on some
occasions of weather and winds, be burnt, to visit the city
with a more benign smoak,) not onely all that did approach
the region which is properly design'd to be flowery ; but
even the whole City would be sensible of the sweet and
ravishing varieties of the perfumes, as well of the most
delightful and pleasant objects and places of recreation for
the inhabitants ; yielding also a prospect of a noble and
masculine majesty, by reason of the frequent plantations cf
trees, and nurseries for ornament, profit, and security.
The remainder of the fields included yielding the same,
and better shelter, and pasture for sheep and cattle then
now ; that they lie bleak, expos'd and abandon'd to the
winds, which perpetually invade them.
That, to this end, the gardiners (which now cultivate
the upper, more drie, and ungrateful soil), be encouraged
to begin plantations in such places onely : and the further
exorbitant encrease of tenements, poor and nasty cottages
near the City, be prohibited, which disgrace and take off from
the sweetness and amoenity of the environs of London, and
are already become a great eye-sore in the grounds opposite
to his Majesty's Palace of White-hall ; which being converted
to this use, might yield a diversion inferior to none that
could be imagin'd for health, profit, and beauty, which are
the three transcendencies that render a palace without all
exception.
And this is what (in short) I had to offer, for the im-
provement and melioration of the Aer about London, and
with which I shall conclude this discourse.
 APPENDIX

A Short List of Evelyn s Works on Gardening,

Forestry and Agriculture : —
• Sylva ' and ' Pomona,' 1664. Sixth ed., 1 786,
by A. Hunter, M.D., F.R.S.
« Kalendarium Hortense,' 1664. Tenth ed.,
1706.
'Acetaria, a Discourse of Sallets,' 1699.
Translations : —

'The French Gardener,' 1658. Fourth ed.,

1 69 1.
♦ The Compleat Gard'ner ' (from the French of
La Quintinye's Instructions pour les jardins
fru'ttiers et potagers), 1693.
1 Of Gardens,' from the Latin of Rene Rapin
(published by Evelyn, but by his son).
1 A Letter to Lord Brouncker on a New Machine
for Ploughing.'
« Terra : A Philosophical Discourse of Earth,'
1676. Reprinted 1778 by A. Hunter,
M.D., F.R.S.
lxi
WILL AND CODICIL OF SIR WILLIAM
TEMPLE

Extracted from the Principal Registry of the

Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division of
the High Court of Justice.

In the Frerogat'tve Court of Canterbury.

Moreparke, March 8, 1694/5. After having made
several other Wills in more form I shall make this as
short as I can to avoid those cruel remembrances that
have so often occasioned the changing of them God's
holy name be praised His will be done Being there-
fore in perfect health and sense at the writing hereof I
leave to my sister Giffard my lease of Blansby in
Yorkshire from the Crown for three lives now in being
as likewise my Colledge lease of lands near Armagh in
Ireland with all right title and interest I have therein
or shall have at the time of my decease to be held and
enjoyed by her my said sister during her life and after
her death I leave both the said leases to my nephew
John Temple I leave my house in the Pell Mell with my
right and title therein unto my daughter in law Mrs.
Mary Temple during her life and after her death to
her two daughters Elizabeth and Dorothy Temple I
lxii
 INTRODUCTION lxiii

leave ray Colledge lease of Clownes in Ireland to my

nephew John Temple I leave to my grand child
Elizabeth Temple my inlaid cabinet my gold watch
and seales with all the gold or silver I shall leave in
my closet at the time of my death I leave all my goods
stock and furniture whatsoever at Moreparke with
pictures statues books purcelane to goe along and
remain with the said house that is to the use of my
sister GifFard during her life and after that successively
to those persons to whom I have or shall by deed
dispose the said house and lands with the rest of my
estate late in Joynture to my dear wife desiring and
appointing that my said house may be transmitted to
them in the same condicon I shall leave it and as a
possession or jewel I most love and esteem for many
reasons I leave all the rest of my money debts goods
plate or other personal estate not used commonly at
More Parke nor disposed of by this or any succeeding
will In the first place to the discharge of what debts
I shall leave unpaid at the time of my death or what
legacies I shall leave by this or any succeeding will
and the whole remainder of any and all such personal
estate I leave and appoint to be divided into four equall
parts whereof I leave one to my sister one to each of
my two grandchildren and a fourth to my two brothers
lxiv INTRODUCTION

and of this last three parts to Sr John Temple and two

to Mr. Henry Temple I leave for a legacy to Bridget
Johnson Ralph More and Lennard Robinson twenty
pounds apeice with half a years wages to them and all
my other servants and twenty pounds to the poor of
the Parish of Farnham I leave a lease of some lands I
have in Morristown in the County of Wickloe in
Ireland to Esther Johnson servant to my sister GifFard
I leave and appoint my brothers Sr John Temple and
Henry Temple and my sister Dame Martha GifFard
Executors and Executrix of this my last Will and
Testament I desire my body may be interred at
Westminster Abby near those two dear pledges gone
before me but with as much privacy and as small
expence as my Executors shall find convenient And
I desire and appoint that my heart may be interred six
foot under ground on the South East side of the stone
dyal in my little garden at Moreparke In witness of
all which I have hereunto set my hand and seale this
eighth day of March 1694 — W. Temple. Signed
and sealed in presence of — Thomas Swift — Leonard
Robinson — Ralph More.

Upon this 2d of Feby 1697/8 I have thought fitt

to add this codicill to my will whereas by a clause of
 INTRODUCTION lxv

my said will and testamt one fourth part of my

personal estate (above debts and legacies) is left between
my two brothers and whereas it has pleased God that I
have since outlived one of them I doe now appoint and
leave out of the said fourth part one hundred pounds to
my cousin William Dingley student at Oxford and
another hundred pounds to Mr. Jonathan Swift now
dwelling with me and to free my Executors from the
trouble of choosing where to lay me I do order it to be
in the West He of Westminster Abby near those two
dear pledges that lye there already and that after mine
and my sisters decease a large stone of black marble
may be set up against the wall with this inscription —
Sibi suisq Charissimis Dianae Temple dilectissimae
filiae Dorotheae Osborne conjunctissimae conjugi et
Marthae GifFard Optimae Sorori Hoc qualecunq
monumentum poni curavi Gulielmus Temple Temple
Baronettus — W. Temple. Signed and sealed in presence
of M. GifFard — B. Johnson — Leonard Robinson.

Proved with a Codicil 29th March, 1699.

 NOTE ON ILLUSTRATIONS

A few words about the Illustrations to the Volume.

For the portrait of Temple I have chosen George
Vertue's engraving, dated 1679, prefixed to the folio
of 1 73 1, after one of Lely's portraits, of which I
believe four are known — at Emmanuel College, Cam-
bridge, at Broadlands, and at Chicksand Priory : at
Coddenham is, or was, a portrait of Temple as a youth
of eighteen, with a hunting-spear and greyhound.
Besides Vertue's there are other engravings by
Vanderbanc (a very handsome portrait prefixed to
Courtenay's Life) ; by R. White (in Letters collected
by Swift, 1700); by Houbracken (curiously preferred
by Mr. Seccombe in his article on Temple in Diet,
of Nat. Biog.) ; and by Vandergucht (in Boyer's
Life of Temple).
Most of the engravings bear the motto chosen by
Temple from Lucan, describing the character of old
Cato — Servare modum, Jinemque tueri, Naturamque
Sequi : which fine Stoic legend may still be read over
the Portico at More Park, Farnham. Some might have
lxvi
 NOTE ON ILLUSTRATIONS Ixvii

expected a follower of Epicurus to prefer a Lucretian

line, but Temple appears to have been a Stoic in
character (witness his behaviour on the suicide of his
son), and an Epicurean in temperament and intellect;
at their best and highest the two Philosophies are
one.
The other five Illustrations of Royal Palaces and
Gardens are from the margin of a curious and some-
what rare Map of London and its Environs, published
at Nuremberg about 1725, by Johann Baptista
Homann, a pupil or assistant of Sandrart and Funck.
Homann has been made the subject of a learned mono-
graph by Dr. Christian Sandler,1 and I am indebted
to Mr. Soulsby, Head of the Map Department in
the British Museum, for kindly referring me to this
source of information (which ascribes my map to
J. B. Homann's second son), and for fixing its
approximate date as 1725.

1 Zeittchri/t der Guellschaft fur ErJkundc zu Berlin, No. 124,

1886.
 CONTENTS
TAG!

Dedication ...... ix
Introduction ...... xi
Appendix

Evelyn's Works on Gardening . . Ixi

Will and Codicil of Sir W. Temple . lxii
Note on Illustrations .... lxvi

List of Illustrations .... lxxi

Sir William Temple : Upon the Gardens of

Epicurus ; or, of Gardening in the Year
1685 3
• 69
Abraham Cowley : The Garden .
Sir Thomas Browne
The Epistle Dedicatory .
I. • 89
• 93
The Garden of Cyrus. Chap.
Chap. II. 101
Chap. III. 102
Chap. IV.
V. 106
Chap.
1 1 1

Observations upon Several Plants men-

tioned in Scripture . . . .113
lxix
 ,xx CONTENTS

Sir Thomas Browne

Of Garlands and Coronary
Plants . or Garland

Observations on Grafting
Andrew Marvell
The Garden
The Mower against Gardens
John Evelyn
Garden Letters .
The Plan of a Royal Garden
Garden Cuttings from Diar
y
Biographical Notes
Index
 ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of Sir William Temple Frontispiece
Engraved by George Vertue after Sir Peter Lely.
Hampton Court Palace and
Gardens . . . To face page 3
Windsor Palace and Gardens . „ „ 69
Chelsea Hospital and Gardens . „ „ 87
Kensington Palace and Gardens . „ „ 165
Greenwich Hospital and Gardens „ ,, 173
These Jive Garden Views are from engravings on the margin of
a Map of London and Environs , published at Nuremberg by Johann

Bapt'nta Homann about 1725.

lxxi
JPON THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS ;
3R OF GARDENING IN THE YEAR
685

BY

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE

(1628-1698)
 UPON THE

GARDENS OF EPICURUS;
OR OF GARDENING IN THE YEAR 16S5

THE same faculty of reason which gives man-

kind the great advantage and prerogative over
the rest of the creation, seems to make the greatest
default of human nature ; and subjects it to more
troubles, miseries, or at least disquiets of life, than any
of its fellow-creatures : 'tis this furnishes us with such
variety of passions, and consequently of wants and
desires, that none other feels ; and these followed by
infinite designs and endless pursuits, and improved by
that restlessness of thought which is natural to most
men, give him a condition of life suitable to that of
his birth ; so that as he alone is born crying, he lives
complaining, and dies disappointed.
Since we cannot escape the pursuit of passions, and
perplexity of thoughts, which our reason furnishes us,
there is no way left but to endeavour all we can, either
to subdue or to divert them. This last is the common
business of common men, who seek it by all sorts of
4 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS
sports, pleasures, play or business. But because the two
first are of short continuance, soon ending with weari-
ness, or decay of vigour and appetite, the return where-
of must be attended, before the others can be renewed ;
and because play grows dull if it be not enlivened with
the hopes of gain, the general diversion of mankind
seems to be business, or the pursuit of riches in one kind
or other ; which is an amusement that has this one
advantage above all others, that it lasts those men who
engage in it to the very ends of their lives ; none ever
growing too old for the thoughts and desires of increas-
ing his wealth and fortunes, either for himself, his
friends, or his posterity.
In the first and most simple ages of each country,
the conditions and lives of men seem to have been very
near of kin with the rest of the creatures ; they lived
by the hour, or by the day, and satisfied their appetite
with what they could get from the herbs, the fruits, the
springs they met with when they were hungry or dry ;
then, with what fish, fowl, or beasts they could kill, by
swiftness or strength, by craft or contrivance, by their
hands, or such instruments as wit helped or necessity
forced them to invent. When a man had got enough
for the day, he laid up the rest for the morrow, and
spent one day in labour, that he might pass the other
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 5

at ease ; and lured on by the pleasure of this bait,

when he was in vigour, and his game fortunate, he
would provide for as many days as he could, both for
himself and his children, that were too young to seek
out for themselves. Then he cast about, how by
sowing of grain, and by pasture of the tamer catde, to
provide for the whole year. After this, dividing the
lands necessary for these uses, first among children, and
then among servants, he reserved to himself a proportion
of their gain, either in the native stock, or something
equivalent, which brought in the use of money ; and
where this once came in none was to be satisfied,
without having enough for himself and his family, and
all his and their posterity for ever ; so that I know
a certain lord who professes to value no lease, though
for an hundred or a thousand years, nor any estate or
possession of land, that is not for ever and ever.
From such small beginnings have grown such vast
and extravagant designs of poor mortal men : yet none
could ever answer the naked Indian, why one man
should take pains, and run hazards by sea and land
all his life, that his children might be safe and lazy
all theirs : and the precept of taking no care for to-
morrow, though never minded as impracticable in the
world, seems but to reduce mankind to their natural
6 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

and original condition of life. However, by these

ways and degrees, the endless increase of riches seems
to be grown the perpetual and general amusement, or
business of mankind.
Some few in each country make those higher flights
after honour and power, and to these ends sacrifice
their riches, their labour, their thought, and their lives ;
and nothing diverts nor busies men more than these
pursuits, which are usually covered with the pretences
of serving a man's country, and of public good. But
the true service of the public is a business of so much
labour and so much care, that though a good and wise
man may not refuse it, if he be called to it by his
prince or his country, and thinks he can be of more
than vulgar use, yet he will seldom or never seek it ;
but leaves it commonly to men, who, under the disguise
of public good, pursue their own designs of wealth,
power, and such bastard honours as usually attend them,
not that which is the true, and only true reward of
virtue.
The pursuits of ambition, though not so general, yet
are as endless as those of riches, and as extravagant ;
since none ever yet thought he had power or empire
enough : and what prince soever seems to be so great,
as to live and reign without any further desires or fears,
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 7

falls into the life of a private man, and enjoys but

those pleasures and entertainments which a great
many several degrees of private fortune will allow, and
as much as human nature is capable of enjoying.
The pleasures of the senses grow a litde more
choice and refined ; those of imagination are turned
upon embellishing the scenes he chooses to live in ;
ease, conveniency, elegancy, magnificence, are sought in
building first, and then in furnishing houses or palaces :
the admirable imitations of nature are introduced by
pictures, statues, tapestry, and other such achievements
of arts. And the most exquisite delights of sense are
pursued, in the contrivance and plantation of gardens ;
which with fruits, flowers, shades, fountains, and the
music of birds that frequent such happy places, seem
to furnish all the pleasures of the several senses,
and with the greatest, or at least the most natural
perfections.
Thus the first race of Assyrian kings, after the
conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, passed their lives,
till their empire fell to the Medes. Thus the Caliphs
of Egypt, till deposed by their Mamalukes. Thus
passed the latter parts of those great lives of Scipio,
Lucullus, Augustus, Diocletian. Thus turned the
great thoughts of Henry the Second of France, after
8 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

the end of his wars with Spain. Thus the present

King of Morocco, after having subdued all his com-
petitors, passes his life in a country villa, gives audience
in a grove of orange-trees planted among purling
streams. And thus the King of France, after all the
successes of his councils or arms, and in the mighty
elevation of his present greatness and power, when
he gives himself leisure from such designs or pursuits,
passes the softer and easier parts of his time in country
houses and gardens, in building, planting, or adorning
the scenes, or in the common sports and entertainments
of such kind of lives. And those mighty emperors,
who contented not themselves with these pleasures
of common humanity, fell into the frantic or the
extravagant ; they pretended to be gods, or turned to
be devils, as Caligula and Nero, and too many others
known enough in story.
Whilst mankind is thus generally busied or amused,
that part of them, who have had either the justice or
the luck to pass in common opinion for the wisest
and the best part among them, have followed another
and very different scent ; and instead of the common
designs of satisfying their appetites and their passions,
and making endless provisions for both, they have
chosen what they thought a nearer and surer way to the
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 9

ease and felicity of life, by endeavouring to subdue,

or at least to temper their passions, and reduce their
appetites to what nature seems only to ask and to need.
And this design seems to have brought philosophy into
the world, at least that which is termed moral, and
appears to have an end not only desirable by every man,
which is the ease and happiness of life, but also in some
degree suitable to the force and reach of human nature :
for as to that part of philosophy which is called natural,
I know no end it can have, but that of either busying
a man's brains to no purpose, or satisfying the vanity
so natural to most men of distinguishing themselves,
by some way or other, from those that seem their
equals in birth, and the common advantages of it : and
whether this distinction be made by wealth or power,
or appearance of knowledge, which gains esteem and
applause in the world, is all a case. More than this, I
know no advantage mankind has gained by the progress
of natural philosophy, during so many ages it has had
vogue in the world, excepting always, and very justly,
what we owe to the mathematics, which is in a manner
all that seems valuable among the civilized nations,
more than those we call barbarous, whether they are
so or no, or more so than ourselves.
How ancient this natural philosophy has been in the
io THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

world is hard to know ; for we find frequent mention

of ancient philosophers in this kind, among the most
ancient now extant with us. The first who found out
the vanity of it seems to have been Solomon, of which
discovery he has left such admirable strains in Eccle-
siastes. The next was Socrates, who made it the
business of his life to explode it, and introduce that
which we call moral in its place, to busy human
minds to better purpose. And indeed, whoever reads
with thought what these two, and Marcus Antoninus,
have said upon the vanity of all that mortal man can
ever attain to know of nature, in its originals or
operations, may save himself a great deal of pains,
and justly conclude, that the knowledge of such
things is not our game ; and (like the pursuit of a stag
by a little spaniel) may serve to amuse and to weary
us, but will never be hunted down. Yet I think those
three I have named, may justly pass for the wisest
triumvirate that are left us upon the records of story
or of time.
After Socrates, who left nothing in writing, many
sects of philosophers began to spread in Greece, who
entered boldly upon both parts of natural and moral
philosophy. The first with the greatest disagreement,
and the most eager contention that could be upon the
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS n

greatest subjects : as, whether the world were eternal,

or produced at some certain time : Whether, if pro-
duced, itwas by some eternal mind, and to some end, or
bv the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or some particles
of eternal matter r Whether there was one world,
or many? Whether the soul of man was a part of
some ethereal and eternal substance, or was corporeal :
Whether, if eternal, it was so before it came into the
bodv, or only after it went out ? There were the
same contentions about the motions of the heavens, the
magnitude of the celestial bodies, the faculties of the
mind, and the judgment of the senses. But all the
different schemes of nature that have been drawn of
old, or of late, by Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Des-
cartes, Hobbes, or any other that I know of, seem to
agree but in one thing, which is, the want of demon-
stration or satisfaction, to any thinking and unpossessed
man ; and seem more or less probable one than another,
according to the wit and eloquence of the authors and
advocates that raise or defend them ; like jugglers'
tricks, that have more or less appearance of being real,
according to the dexterousness and skill of him that
plays 'em ; whereas perhaps, if we were capable of
knowing truth and nature, these fine schemes would
prove like rover shots, some nearer and some further
12 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

off, but all at great distance from the mark ; it may

be, none in sight.
Yet in the midst of these and many other such dis-
putes and contentions in their natural philosophy, they
seem to agree much better in their moral ; and upon
their inquiries after the ultimate end of man, which
was his happiness, their contentions or differences
seemed to be rather in words, than in the sense of
their opinions, or in the true meaning of their several
authors or masters of their sects : all concluded that
happiness was the chief good, and ought to be the
ultimate end of man ; that as this was the end of
wisdom, so wisdom was the way to happiness. The
question then was, in what this happiness consisted ?
The contention grew warmest between the Stoics and
Epicureans ; the other sects in this point siding in a
manner with one or the other of these in their con-
ceptions or expressions. The Stoics would have it
to consist in virtue, and the Epicureans in pleasure ;
yet the most reasonable of the Stoics made the
pleasure of virtue to be the greatest happiness ; and
the best of the Epicureans made the greatest pleasure
to consist in virtue ; and the difference between these
two seems not easily discovered. AW agreed, the
greatest temper, if not the total subduing of passion,
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS ij
and exercise of reason, to be the state of the greatest
felicity : to live without desires or fears, or those
perturbations of mind and thought, which passions
raise : to place true riches in wanting little, rather than
in possessing much ; and true pleasure in temperance,
rather than in satisfying the senses : to live with
indifference to the common enjoyments and accidents
of life, and with constancy upon the greatest blows of
fate or of chance ; not to disturb our minds with sad
reflections upon what is past, nor with anxious cares or
raving hopes about what is to come ; neither to dispute
life with the fears of death, nor death with the desires of
life ; but in both, and in all things else, to follow nature,
seem to be the precepts most agreed among them.
Thus reason seems only to have been called in, to
allay those disorders which itself had raised, to cure
its own wounds, and pretends to make us wise no other
way, than by rendering us insensible. This at least
was the profession of many rigid Stoics, who would
have had a wise man, not only without any sort of
passion, but without any sense of pain, as well as
pleasure ; and to enjoy himself in the midst of diseases
and torments, as well as of health and ease : a principle,
in my mind, against common nature and common
sense ; and which might have told us in fewer words,
i4 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS
or with less circumstance, that a man, to be wise,
should not be a man ; and this perhaps might have been
easy enough to believe, but nothing so hard as the other.
The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion,
and fortunate in their expressions, when they placed
a man's happiness in the tranquillity of mind, and
indolence of body ; for while we are composed of
both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or
ill we feel. As men of several languages say the same
things in very different words ; so in several ages,
countries, constitutions of laws and religion, the same
thing seems to be meant by very different expressions :
what is called by the Stoics, apathy, or dispassion ; by
the Sceptics, indisturbance ; by the Molinists, quietism ;
by common men, peace of conscience ; seems all to
mean but great tranquillity of mind, though it be made
to proceed from so diverse causes, as human wisdom,
innocence of life, or resignation to the will of God.
An old usurer had the same notion, when he said, No
man could have peace of conscience, that run out of his
estate ; not comprehending what else was meant by that
phrase, besides true quiet and content of mind ; which,
however expressed, is, I suppose, meant by all, to be
the best account that can be given of the happiness of
man, since no man can pretend to be happy without it.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 15

I have often wondered how such sharp and violent

invectives came to be made so generally against
Epicurus, by the ages that followed him, whose
admirable wit, felicity of expression, excellence of
nature, sweetness of conversation, temperance of life,
and constancy of death, made him so beloved by his
friends, admired by his scholars, and honoured by the
Athenians. But this injustice may be fastened chiefly
upon the envy and malignity of the Stoics at first,
then upon the mistakes of some gross pretenders to
his sect (who took pleasure only to be sensual), and
afterwards, upon the piety of the primitive Christians,
who esteemed his principles of natural philosophy more
opposite to those of our religion, than either the
Platonists, the Peripatetics, or Stoics themselves : yet,
I confess, I do not know why the ace ~:*en by
Lucretius of the Gods, shcuiu . "ire
impious than that given by Homer, who mak< :em
not only subject to all the weakest passions, but
perpetually busy in all the worst or meanest actions
of men.
But Epicurus has found so great advocates of his
virtue, as well as learning and inventions, that there
need no more ; and the testimonies of Diogenes
Laertius alone seem too sincere and impartial to be
16 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

disputed, or to want the assistance of modern authors :

if all failed, he will be but too well defended by the
excellence of so many of his sect in all ages, and
especially of those who lived in the compass of one,
but the greatest in story, both as to persons and events :
I need name no more than Caesar, Atticus, Maecenas,
Lucretius, Virgil, Horace ; all admirable in their several
kinds, and perhaps unparalleled in story.
Caesar, if considered in all lights, may justly chal-
lenge the first place in the registers we have of man-
kind, equal only to himself, and surpassing all others of
his nation and his age, in the virtues and excellences of
a statesman, a captain, an orator, an historian ; besides
all these, a poet, a philosopher, when his leisure allowed
him ; the greatest man of counsel and of action, of de-
sign and execution ; the greatest nobleness of birth,
of person and of countenance ; the greatest humanity
and clemency of nature, in the midst of the greatest
provocations, occasions and examples of cruelty and
revenge : 'tis true, he overturned the laws and constitu-
tions of his country ; yet 'twas after so many others
had not only begun, but proceeded very far, to change
and violate them ; so as in what he did, he seems
rather to have prevented l others, than to have done
1 i. e. anticipated.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 17

what himself designed ; for though his ambition was

vast, yet it seems to have been raised to those heights,
rather by the insolence of his enemies than by his own
temper ; and that what was natural to him was only a
desire of true glory, and to acquire it by good actions
as well as great, by conquests of barbarous nations,
extent of the Roman Empire ; defending at first the
liberties of the plebeians, opposing the faction that
had begun in Sylla, and ended in Pompey : and in the
whole course of his victories and successes, seeking all
occasions of bounty to his friends, and clemency to his
enemies.
Atticus appears to have been one of the wisest
and best of the Romans ; learned without pretending,
good without affectation, bountiful without design, a
friend to all men in misfortune, a flatterer to no man
in greatness or power, a lover of mankind, and beloved
by them all ; and by these virtues and dispositions, he
passed safe and untouched through all the flames of
civil dissensions that ravaged his country the greatest
part of his life ; and though he never entered into any
public affairs, or particular factions of his State, yet he
was favoured, honoured, and courted by them all, from
Sylla to Augustus.
Maecenas was the wisest counsellor, the truest
c
18 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

friend, both of his prince and his country, the best

governor of Rome, the happiest and ablest negotiator,
the best judge of learning and virtue, the choicest in
his friends, and thereby the happiest in his con-
versation that has been known in story ; and I think,
to his conduct in civil, and Agrippa's in military
affairs, may be truly ascribed all the fortunes and
greatness of Augustus, so much celebrated in the
world.
For Lucretius, Virgil and Horace, they deserve in
my opinion the honour of the greatest philosophers, as
well as the best poets of their nation or age. The
two first, besides what looks like something more than
human in their poetry, were very great naturalists, and
admirable in their morals : and Horace, besides the
sweetness and elegancy of his lyrics, appears in the
rest of his writings so great a master of life, and of
true sense in the conduct of it, that I know none
beyond him. It was no mean strain of his philosophy,
to refuse being secretary to Augustus, when so great
an emperor so much desired it. But all the different
sects of philosophers seem to have agreed in the
opinion of a wise man's abstaining from public affairs,
which is thought the meaning of Pythagoras's precept,
to abstain from beans, by which the affairs or public
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 19

resolutions in Athens were managed. They thought

that sort of business too gross and material for the
abstracted fineness of their speculations. They es-
teemed ittoo sordid and too artificial for the cleanness
and simplicity of their manners and lives. They
would have no part in the faults of a government ; and
they knew too well, that the nature and passions of
men made them incapable of any that was perfect and
good ; and therefore thought all the service they
could do to the State they live under, was to mend the
lives and manners of particular men that composed it.
But where factions were once entered and rooted in
a State, they thought it madness for good men to
meddle with public affairs ; which made them turn
their thoughts and entertainments to anything rather
than this : and Heraclitus having upon the factions of
the citizens quitted the government of his city, and
amusing himself to play with the boys in the porch
of the temple, asked those who wondered at him,
•whether 'twas not better to play with such boys, than
govern such men ? But above all, they esteemed
public business the most contrary of all others to that
tranquillity of mind, which they esteemed and taught
to be the only true felicity of man.
For this reason Epicurus passed his life wholly in
2o THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

his gardens ; there he studied, there he exercised,

there he taught his philosophy ; and indeed, no other
sort of abode seems to contribute so much, to both
the tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body, which
he made his chief ends. The sweetness of air, the
pleasantness of smells, the verdure of plants, the clean-
ness and lightness of food, the exercises of working
or walking ; but above all, the exemption from cares
and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve
both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense
and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both
of the body and mind.
Though Epicurus be said to have been the first
that had a garden in Athens, whose citizens before
him had theirs in their villages or farms without the
city ; yet the use of gardens seems to have been the
most ancient and most general of any sorts of possession
among mankind, and to have preceded those of corn
or of cattle, as yielding the easier, the pleasanter, and
more natural food. As it has been the inclination of
kings, and the choice of philosophers, so it has been
the common favourite of public and private men ; a
pleasure of the greatest, and the care of the meanest j
and indeed an employment and a possession, for which
no man is too high nor too low.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS zi

If we believe the Scripture, we must allow that

God Almighty esteemed the life of a man in a
garden the happiest He could give him, or else He
would not have placed Adam in that of Eden ; that
it was a state of innocence and pleasure ; and that the
life of husbandry and cities came in after the Fall, with
guilt and with labour.
Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and
little agreed ; but what sort of place is meant by it,
may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have
been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek
authors mention it, as what was much in use and delight
among the kings of those Eastern countries. Strabo
describing Jericho, says, Hi est palmetum, cui immixte
sunt, etiam aft* stirpes hortenses, locus ferax, pa/mis
abundans% spatio stadiorum centum, totus irriguus, ibi est
Regia Iff Balsami Paradisus. He mentions another
place to be prope Libanum £5* Paradisum. And
Alexander is written to have seen Cyrus's tomb in a
paradise, being a tower not very great, and covered
with a shade of trees about it. So that a Paradise
among them seems to have been a large space of
ground, adorned and beautified with all sorts of trees,
both of fruits and of forest, either found there before
it was enclosed, or planted after ; either cultivated
22 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

like gardens, for shades and for walks, with fountains

or streams, and all sorts of plants usual in the climate,
and pleasant to the eye, the smell or the taste ; or else
employed, like our Parks, for enclosure and harbour
of all sorts of wild beasts, as well as for the pleasure
of riding and walking : and so they were of more or
less extent, and of differing entertainment, according to
the several humours of the princes that ordered and
enclosed them.
Semiramis is the first we are told of in story, that
brought them in use through her empire, and was so
fond of them, as to make one wherever she built, and
in all, or most of the provinces she subdued ; which
are said to have been from Babylon as far as India.
The Assyrian kings continued this custom and care, or
rather this pleasure, till one of them brought in the use
of smaller and more regular gardens : for having
married a wife he was fond of, out of one of the
provinces, where such paradises or gardens were much
in use, and the country lady not well bearing the air
or enclosure of the palace in Babylon to which the
Assyrian kings used to confine themselves ; he made
her gardens, not only within the palaces, but upon
terraces raised with earth, over the arched roofs, and
even upon the top of the highest tower, planted them
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 23

with all sorts of fruit-trees, as well as other plants and

flowers, the most pleasant of that country ; and there-
by made at least the most airy gardens, as well as the
most costly, that have been heard of in the world. This
lady may probably have been native of the provinces of
Chasimir, or of Damascus, which have in all times
been the happiest regions for fruits of all the East,
by the excellence of soil, the position of mountains, the
frequency of streams, rather than the advantages of
climate. And 'tis great pity we do not yet see the
history of Chasimir, which Monsieur Bernier assured
me he had translated out of Persian, and intended to
publish ; and of which he has given such a taste, in his
excellent memoirs of the Mogul's country.
The next gardens we read of, are those of Solomon,
planted with all sorts of fruit-trees, and watered with
fountains ; and though we have no more particular de-
scription ofthem, yet we may find, they were the places
where he passed the times of his leisure and delight,
where the houses as well as grounds were adorned with
all that could be of pleasing and elegant, and were the
retreats and entertainments of those among his wives
that he loved the best ; and 'tis not improbable, that
the paradises mentioned by Strabo, were planted by
this great and wisest king. But the idea of the garden
2+ THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

must be very great, if it answers at all to that of the

gardener, who must have employed a great deal of his
care and of his study, as well as of his leisure and
thought in these entertainments, since he writ of all
plants, from the cedar to the shrub.
What the gardens of the Hesperides were, we have
little or no account, further than the mention of them,
and thereby the testimony of their having been in
use and request, in such remoteness of place, and
antiquity of time.
The garden of Alcinous, described by Homer,
seems wholly poetical, and made at the pleasure of the
painter ; like the rest of the romantic palace, in that
little barren island of Phenicia or Corfu. Yet, as all
the pieces of this transcendent genius are composed
with excellent knowledge, as well as fancy ; so they
seldom fail of instruction as well as delight, to all that
read him. The seat of this garden, joining to the
gates of the palace, the compass of the enclosure being
four acres, the tallNtees of shade, as well as those of
fruit, the two fountains, the one for the use of the
garden, and the other of the palace, the continual
succession of fruits throughout the whole year, are,
for aught I know, the best rules or provisions that can
go towards composing the best gardens ; nor is it
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 25

unlikely, that Homer may have drawn this picture

after the life of some he had seen in Ionia, the country
and usual abode of this divine poet ; and indeed, the
region of the most refined pleasures and luxury, as
well as invention and wit : for the humour and
custom of gardens may have descended earlier into the
lower Asia, from Damascus, Assyria, and other parts
of the Eastern Empires, though they seem to have
made late entrance, and smaller improvement in those
of Greece and Rome ; at least in no proportion to
their other inventions or refinements of pleasure and
luxury.
The long and flourishing peace of the two first
Empires, gave earlier rise and growth to learning and
civility, and all the consequences of them, in magnifi-
cence and elegancy of building and gardening, whereas
Greece and Rome were almost perpetually engaged in
quarrels and wars, either abroad or at home, and so
were busy in actions that were done under the sun,
rather than those under the shade. These were the
entertainments of the softer nations, that fell under the
virtue and prowess of the two last empires, which
from those conquests brought home mighty increases
both of riches and luxury, and so perhaps lost more
than they got by the spoils of the East.
26 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

There may be another reason for the small advance

of gardening in those excellent and more temperate
climates, where the air and soil were so apt of them-
selves to produce the best sorts of fruits, without the
necessity of cultivating them by labour and care ;
whereas the hotter climates, as well as the cold, are
forced upon industry and skill, to produce or improve
many fruits that grow of themselves in the more
temperate regions. However it were, we have very
little mention of gardens in old Greece, or in old
Rome, for pleasure or with elegance, nor of much
curiousness or care, to introduce the fruits of foreign
climates, contenting themselves with those which were
native of their own ; and these were the vine, the
olive, the fig, the pear, and the apple : Cato, as I
remember, mentions no more ; and their gardens were
then but the necessary part of their farms, intended
particularly for the cheap and easy food of their hinds
or slaves, employed in their agriculture, and so were
turned chiefly to all the common sorts of plants,
herbs, or legumes (as the French call them) proper
for common nourishment ; and the name of hortus is
taken to be from ortus, because it perpetually furnishes
some rise or production of something new in the world.
Lucullus, after the Mithridatic war, first brought
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 27

cherries from Pontus into Italy, which so generally

pleased, and were so easily propagated in all climates,
that within the space of about an hundred years, having
travelled westward with the Roman conquests, they
grew common as far as the Rhine, and passed over
into Britain. After the conquest of Africa, Greece,
the Lesser Asia, and Syria, were brought into Italy
all the sorts of their Mala, which we interpret
apples, and might signify no more at first, but were
afterwards applied to many other foreign fruits : the
apricots coming from Epire, were called Mala Epi-
rotica ; peaches from Persia, Mala Persica ; citrons
of Media, Med'ica ; pomegranates from Carthage,
Punka ; quinces Catkonea, from a small island in the
Grecian seas ; their best pears were brought from
Alexandria, Numidia, Greece, and Numantia ; as
appears by their several appellations : their plums, from
Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from Damascus. The
kinds of these are reckoned in Nero's time, to have
been near thirty, as well as of figs ; and many of them
were entertained at Rome with so great applause, and
so general vogue, that the great captains, and even
consular men, who first brought them over, took pride
in giving them their own names (by which they run a
great while in Rome) as in memory of some great
28 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

service or pleasure they had done their country ; so

that not only laws and battles, but several sorts of
apples or Mala, and of pears, were called Manlian and
Claudian, Pompeyan and Tiberian ; and by several
other such noble names.
Thus the fruits of Rome, in about an hundred years,
came from countries as far as their conquests had
reached ; and like learning, architecture, painting, and
statuary, made their great advances in Italy, about the
Augustan age. What was of most request in their
common gardens in Virgil's time, or at least in his
youth, may be conjectured by the description of his
old Corician's gardens in the fourth of the Georgics ;
which begins,
Namque sub Oebalias memini me turribus alti,1
Among flowers, the roses had the first place,
especially a kind which bore twice a year ; and none
other sorts are here mentioned besides the narcissus,
though the violet and the lily were very common, and
the next in esteem ; especially the Breve Lilium, which
was the tuberose. The plants he mentions, are the
Apium, which though commonly interpreted parsley, yet
comprehends all sorts of smallage, whereof celery is
one ; Cucumis, which takes in all sorts of melons, as
1 Temple misquotes : ' alti ' should be • arcis.'
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 29

well as cucumbers ; O/us, which is a common word

for all sorts of pot-herbs and legumes ; Verbenas, which
signifies all kinds of sweet or sacred plants that were
used for adorning the altars ; as bays, olive, rosemary,
myrtle : the Acanthus seems to be what we call Peri-
canthe ; but what their Hedera were, that deserved
place in a garden, I cannot guess, unless they had sorts
of ivy unknown to us ; nor what his Vescum Papaver
was, since poppies with us are of no use in eating.
The fruits mentioned, are only apples, pears, and plums ;
for olives, vines and figs, were grown to be fruits
of their fields, rather than of their gardens. The
shades were the elm, the pine, the lime-tree, and the
Plat anus, or plane-tree ; whose leaf and shade, of all
others, was the most in request ; and having been
brought out of Persia, was such an inclination among
the Greeks and Romans, that they usually fed it with
wine instead of water ; they believed this tree loved
that liquor, as well as those that used to drink under its
shade ; which was a great humour and custom, and
perhaps gave rise to the other, by observing the growth
of the tree, or largeness of the leaves, where much wine
was spilt or left, and thrown upon the roots.
'Tis great pity the haste which Virgil seems here to
have been in, should have hindered him from entering
3o THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

farther into the account or instructions of gardening,

which he said he could have given, and which he
seems to have so much esteemed and loved, by that
admirable picture of this old man's felicity, which he
draws like so great a master, with one stroke of a
pencil in those four words.
Regum asquabat opes animis.

That in the midst of these small possessions, upon a

few acres of barren ground, yet he equalled all the
wealth and opulence of kings, in the ease, content, and
freedom of his mind.
I am not satisfied with the common acceptation of
the Mala Aurea, for oranges ; nor do I find any
passage in the authors of that age, which gives me the
opinion, that these were otherwise known to the
Romans than as fruits of the eastern climates. I
should take their Mala Aurea to be rather some kind
of apples, so called from the golden colour, as some
are amongst us ; for otherwise, the orange-tree is too
noble in the beauty, taste and smell of its fruit ; in the
perfume and virtue of its flowers ; in the perpetual
verdure of its leaves, and in the excellent uses of all
these, both for pleasure and health ; not to have
deserved any particular mention in the writings of an
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 31

age and nation, so refined and exquisite in all sorts of

delicious luxury.
The charming description \ irgil makes of the
happy apple, must be intended either for the citron, or
for some sort of orange growing in Media, which was
either so proper to that country, as net to grow in any
other (as a certain sort of fig was to Damascus) or to
have lost its virtue by changing soils, or to have had
its effect of curing some sort of poison that was usual
in that country, but particular to it : I cannot forbear
inserting those few lines out of the second of Virgil's
Georgics, not having ever heard anybody else take
notice of them.

Media fert tristes succos, tardumque saporem

Fcelicis mali ; quo non prsesentibus ullum,
Pocula si quando szvse infecere novercas,
Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena.
Ipsa ingens arbos, faciemque simillima lauro ;
Et si non alios late jactaret odorem,
Laurus erat, folia haud ullis labentia ventis ;
Flos apprima tenax : animas & olentia Medi
Ora fovent illo, et senibus medicantur anbelis.

Media brings pois'nous herbs, and the flat taste

Of the bless'd apple, than which ne'er was found
A help more present, when curst step-dames mix
Their mortal cups to drive the venom out.
32 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS
Tis a large tree, and like a bays in hue ;
And did it not such odours cast about,
Twou'd be a bays ; the leaves with no winds fall,
The flowers all excel : with these the Medes
Perfume their breaths, and cure old pursy men.

The tree being so like a bays or laurel, the slow or

dull taste of the apple, the virtue of it against poison,
seem to describe the citron. The perfume of the
flowers and virtues of them, to cure ill scents of mouth
or breath, or shortness of wind in pursy old men,
seem to agree most with the orange : if Jios apprima
tenax, mean only the excellence of the flower above
all others, it may be intended for the orange : if it
signifies the flowers growing most upon the tops of the
trees, it may be rather the citron ; for I have been so
curious as to bring up a citron from a kernel, which at
twelve years of age began to flower ; and I observed
all the flowers to grow upon the top branches of the
tree, but to be nothing so high or sweet-scented, as
the orange. On the other side, I have always heard
oranges to pass for a cordial juice, and a great pre-
servative against the plague, which is a sort of venom ;
so that I know not to which of these we are to
ascribe this lovely picture of the happy apple ; but I
am satisfied by it, that neither of them was at all
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 33

common, if at all known in Italy, at that time, or long

after, though the fruit be now so frequent there in
fields (at least in some parts) and make so common and
delicious a part of gardening, even in these northern
climates.
'Tis certain those noble fruits, the citron, the orange
and the lemon, are the native product of those noble
regions, Assyria, Media and Persia ; and though they
have been from thence transplanted and propagated in
many parts of Europe, yet they have not arrived at
such perfection in beauty, taste or virtue as in their
native soil and climate. This made it generally
observed among the Greeks and Romans, that the
fruits of the East far excelled those of the West. And
several writers had trifled away their time in deducing
the reasons of this difference, from the more benign
or powerful influences of the rising sun. But there is
nothing more evident to any man that has the least
knowledge of the globe, and gives himself leave to
think, than the folly of such wise reasons, since the
regions that are east to us, are west to some others ;
and the sun rises alike to all that lie in the same latitude,
with the same heat and virtue upon its first approaches,
as well as in its progress. Besides, if the eastern fruits
were the better only for that position of climate, then
D
34 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS
those of India should excel those of Persia ; which we
do not find by comparing the accounts of those
countries : but Assyria, Media and Persia have been
ever esteemed, and will be ever found the true regions
of the best and noblest fruits in the world. The reason
of it can be no other, than that of an excellent and
proper soil, being there extended under the best
climate for the production of all sorts of the best
fruits ; which seems to be from about twenty-five, to
about thirty-five degrees of latitude. Now the regions
under this climate in the present Persian empire
(which comprehends most of the other two, called
anciently Assyria and Media) are composed of many
provinces full of great and fertile plains, bounded by
high mountains, especially to the north : watered
naturally with many rivers, and those by art and labour
derived into many more and smaller stream -., which all
conspire to form a country in all circum stances, the
most proper and agreeable for production of the best
and noblest fruits. Whereas if we survey the regions
of the western world, lying in the same latitude
between twenty-five and thirty-five degrees, we shall
find them extended either over the Mediterranean Sea,
the Ocean, or the sandy barren countries of Africa ;
and that no part of the continent of Europe lies so
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 35

southward as thirty-five degrees. Which may serve

to discover the true genuine reason, why the fruits of the
East have been always observed and agreed to transcend
those of the West.
In our north-west climates, our gardens are very
different from what they were in Greece and Italy, and
from what they are now in those regions in Spain, or
the southern parts of France. And as most general
customs in countries grow from the different nature of
climates, soils or situations, and from the necessities or
industry they impose, so do these.
In the warmer regions, fruits and flowers of the best
sorts are so common, and of so easy production, that they
grow in fields, and are not worth the cost of enclosing, or
the care of more than ordinary cultivating. On the other
side, the great pleasures of thot climates are coolness
of air, and whatever looks c<. ) even to the eyes, and
relieves them from the unpleasant sight of dusty streets,
or parched fields. This makes the gardens of those
countries to be chiefly valued by largeness of extent
(which gives greater play and openness of air) by
shades of trees, by frequency of living streams or
fountains, by perspectives, by statues, and by pillars and
obelisks of stone scattered up and down, which all con-
spire to make any place look fresh and cool. On the
36 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

contrary, the more northern climates, as they suffer

little by heat, make little provision against it, and
are careless of shade, and seldom curious in foun-
tains. Good statues are in the reach of few men,
and common ones are generally and justly despised or
neglected. But no sorts of good fruits or flowers,
being natives of the climates, or usual among us ; (nor
indeed the best sort of plants, herbs, salads for our
kitchen-gardens themselves) and the best fruits not
ripening without the advantage of walls or palisadoes,
by reflection of the faint heat we receive from the
sun, our gardens are made of smaller compass, seldom
exceeding four, six, or eight acres ; enclosed with
walls, and laid out in a manner wholly for advantage of
fruits, flowers, and the product of kitchen-gardens in
all sorts of herbs, salads, plants and legumes, for the
common use of tables.
These are usually the gardens of England and
Holland, as the first sort are those of Italy, and were
so of old. In the more temperate parts of France,
and in Brabant (where I take gardening to be at its
greatest height) they are composed of both sorts, the
extent more spacious than ours ; part laid out for
flowers, others for fruits ; some standards, some
against walls or palisades, some for forest-trees and
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 37

groves for shade, some parts wild, some exact ; and

fountains much in request among them.
But after so much ramble into ancient times, and
remote places, to return home and consider the present
way and humour of our gardening in England ; which
seem to have grown into such vogue, and to have
been so mightily improved in three or four and twenty
years of His Majesty's reign, that perhaps few
countries are before us, either in the elegance of our
gardens, or in the number of our plants ; and I believe
none equals us in the variety of fruits, which may be '
justly called good ; and from the earliest cherry and
strawberry, to the last apples and pears, may furnish
every day of the circling year. For the taste and
perfection of what we esteem the best, I may truly
say, that the French, who have eaten my peaches and
grapes at Shene, in no very ill year, have generally
concluded, that the last are as good as any they have
eaten in France, on this side Fountainbleau ; and the
first as good as any they have eat in Gascony ; I mean
those which come from the stone, and are properly
called peaches, not those which are hard, and are
termed pavies ; for these cannot grow in too warm a
climate, nor ever be good in a cold ; and are better at
Madrid, than in Gascony itself: Italians have agreed,
38 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

my white figs to be as good as any of that sort in Italy,

which is the earlier kind of white fig there ; for in
the latter kind, and the blue, we cannot come near the
warm climates, no more than in the Frontignac or
Muscat grape.
My orange-trees are as large as any I saw when I
was young in France, except those of Fountainbleau,
or what I have seen since in the Low Countries, except
some very old ones of the Prince of Orange's ; as
laden with flowers as any can well be, as full of fruit
as I suffer or desire them, and as well tasted as are
commonly brought over, except the best sorts of Sevil
and Portugal. And thus much I could not but say,
in defence of our climate, which is so much and so
generally decried abroad, by those who never saw it ;
or, if they have been here, have yet perhaps seen no
more of it, than what belongs to inns, or to taverns
and ordinaries ; who accuse our country for their own
defaults, and speak ill, not only of our gardens and
houses, but of our humours, our breeding, our customs
and manners of life, by what they have observed of
the meaner and baser sort of mankind ; and of
company among us, because they wanted themselves,
perhaps, either fortune or birth, either quality or merit,
to introduce them among the good.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 39

I must needs add one thing more in favour of our

climate, which I heard the king say, and I thought
new and right, and truly like a king of England, that
loved and esteemed his own country : 'twas in reply
to some of the company that were reviling our climate,
and extolling those of Italy and Spain, or at least of
France : he said, he thought that was the best climate,
where he could be abroad in the air with pleasure, or
at least without trouble and inconvenience, the most
days of the year, and the most hours of the day ; and
this he thought he could be in England, more than in
any country he knew of in Europe. And I believe it
is true, not only of the hot and cold, but even among
our neighbours in France, and the Low Countries
themselves ; where the heats or the colds, and changes
of seasons, are less treatable than they are with us.
The truth is, our climate wants no heat to produce
excellent fruits ; and the default of it, is only the
short season of our heats or summers, by which many
of the latter are left behind, and imperfect with us.
But all such as are ripe before the end of August,
are, for ought I know, as good with us as anywhere
else. This makes me esteem the true region of gardens
in England, to be the compass of ten miles about
London ; where the accidental warmth of air, from
4o THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

the fires and steams of so vast a town, makes fruits, as

well as corn, a great deal forwarder than in Hampshire
or Wiltshire, though more southward by a full degree.
There are, besides the temper of our climate, two
things particular to us, that contribute much to the
beauty and elegance of our gardens, which are the gravel
of our walks, and the fineness and almost perpetual
greenness of our turf. The first is not known any-
where else, which leaves all their dry walks in other
countries, very unpleasant and uneasy. The other can-
not be found in France or in Holland as we have
it, the soil not admitting that fineness of blade in
Holland, nor the sun that greenness in France, during
most of the summer ; nor indeed is it to be found but
in the finest of our soils.
Whoever begins a garden, ought in the first place,
and above all, to consider the soil, upon which the
taste of not only his fruits, but his legumes, and even
herbs and salads, will wholly depend ; and the default
of soil is without remedy : for although all borders of
fruit may be made with what earth you please (if you
will be at the charge) yet it must be renewed in two
or three years, or it runs into the nature of the ground
where 'tis brought. Old trees spread their roots
further than anybody's care extends, or the forms of
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 41

the garden will allow ; and after all, where the soil
about you is ill, the air is so too in a degree, and has
influence upon the taste of fruit. What Horace says
of the productions of kitchen-gardens under the name
of Cau/isy is true of all the best sorts of fruits, and
may determine the choice of soil for all gardens.
Caule suburbano qui siccus crevit in agris
Dulcior, irriguis nihil est elutius hortis.
Plants from dry fields those of the town excel,
Nothing more tasteless is than watered grounds.
Any man had better throw away his care and his
money upon anything else, than upon a garden in wet
or moist ground. Peaches and grapes will have no
taste but upon a sand or gravel ; but the richer these
are, the better ; and neither salads, peas or beans, have
at all the taste upon a clay or rich earth, as they have
upon either of the others, though the size and colour of
fruits and plants may, perhaps, be more upon the worse
soils.
Next to your choice of soil, is to suit your plants to
your ground, since of this every one is not master ;
though perhaps Varro's judgment upon this case is
the wisest and the best ; for to one that asked him,
what he should do if his father or ancestors had left
him a seat in an ill air, or upon an ill soil ? He
42 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

answered, Why sell it, and buy another in good. But

what if I cannot get half the worth ? Why then take
a quarter ; but however sell it for anything, rather than
live upon it.
Of all sorts of soil, the best is that upon a sandy
gravel, or a rosiny sand ; whoever lies upon either of
these, may run boldly into all the best sort of peaches
and grapes, how shallow soever the turf be upon them ;
and whatever other tree will thrive in these soils the fruit
shall be of much finer taste than any other : a richer
soil will do well enough for apricots, plums, pears or
figs ; but still the more of the sand in your earth the
better, and the worse the more of the clay, which is
proper for oaks, and no other tree that I know of.
Fruits should be suited to the climate among us, as
well as the soil ; for there are degrees of one and the
other in England, where 'tis to little purpose to plant
any of the best fruits ; as peaches or grapes, hardly,
I doubt, beyond Northamptonshire, at the furthest
northwards : and I thought it very prudent in a
gentleman of my friends in Staffordshire, who is a
great lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, though
his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of
plums ; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon
them) he has very well succeeded, which he could
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 43

never have done in attempts upon peaches and grapes ;

and a good plum is certainly better than an ill peach.
When I was at Cosevelt with that Bishop of Minis-
ter, that made so much noise in his time, I observed
no other trees but cherries in a great garden he had
made. He told me the reason was, because he found
no other fruit would ripen well in that climate, or upon
that soil ; and therefore instead of being curious in
others, he had only been so in the sorts of that, whereof
he had so many, as never to be without them from
May to the end of September.
As to the size of a garden, which will perhaps, in
time, grow extravagant among us, I think from five or
four, to seven or eight acres, is as much as any gentle-
man need design, and will furnish as much of all that
is expected from it, as any nobleman will have occasion
to use in his family.
In every garden four things are necessary to be !
provided for, flowers, fruit, shade, and water ; and
whoever lays out a garden without all these, must not
pretend it in any perfection : it ought to lie to the
best parts of the house, or to those of the master's
commonest use, so as to be but like one of the rooms
out of which you step into another. The part of your
garden next your house (besides the walks that go
44 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

round it) should be a parterre for flowers, or grass-

plots bordered with flowers ; or if, according to the
newest mode, it be cast all into grass-plots and gravel-
walks, the dryness of these should be relieved with
fountains, and the plainness of those with statues ;
otherwise, if large, they have an ill effect upon the eye.
However, the part next the house should be open, and
no other fruit but upon the walls. If this take up one
half of the garden, the other should be fruit-trees,
unless some grove for shade lie in the middle. If it
take up a third part only, then the next third may be
dwarf-trees, and the last standard-fruit ; or else the
second part fruit-trees, and the third all sorts of winter-
greens, which provide for all seasons of the year.
I will not enter upon any account of flowers, having
only pleased myself with seeing or smelling them, and
not troubled myself with the care, which is more the
ladies' part than the men's ; but the success is wholly in
the gardener. For fruits, the best we have in England,
or I believe can ever hope for, are of peaches, the
white and red Maudlin, the Minion, the Chevreuse, the
Ramboullet, the Musk, the Admirable, which is late ;
all the rest are either varified by names, or not to be
named with these, nor worth troubling a garden, in my
opinion. Of the pavies or hard peaches, I know none
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 45

good here but the Newington, nor will that easily hang
till 'tis full ripe. The forward peaches are to be
esteemed only because they are early, but should find
room in a good garden, at least the white and brown
Nutmeg, the Persian and the violet Musk. The only
good nectarines are the Murry and the French ; of these
there are two sorts, one very sound, and the other some-
thing long, but the round is the best: of the Murry there
are several sorts, but being all hard, they are seldom
well ripened with us.
Of grapes, the best are the Chasselas, which is the
better sort of our white muscadine (as the name was
about Sheen ; ) 'tis called the pearl-grape, and ripens
well enough in common years, but not so well as the
common black, or currand, which is something a worse
grape. The parsley is good, and proper enough to
our climate ; but all white Frontignacs are difficult,
and seldom ripe unless in extraordinary summers.
I have had the honour of bringing over four sorts
into England ; the Arboyse from the Franche Comte,
which is a small white grape, or rather runs into some
small and some great upon the same bunch ; it agrees
well with our climate, but is very choice in soil, and
must have a sharp gravel ; it is the most delicious of
all grapes that are not muscat. The Burgundy, which
46 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

is a grizelin or pale red, and of all others is surest to

ripen in our climate ; so that I have never known them
to fail one summer these fifteen years, when all others
have ; and have had it very good upon an east wall.
A black muscat, which is called the Dowager, and
ripens as well as the common white grape. And the
fourth is the Grizelin Frontignac, being of that colour,
and the highest of that taste, and the noblest of all
grapes I ever eat in England ; but requires the hottest
wall and the sharpest gravel ; and must be favoured by
the summer too, to be very good. All these are, I
suppose, by this time pretty common among some
gardeners in my neighbourhood, as well as several
persons of quality ; for I have ever thought all things
of this kind, the commoner they are made, the better.
Of figs there are among us the white, the blue, and
the tawny : the last is very small, bears ill, and I think
but a bawble. Of the blue there are two or three
sorts, but little different, one something longer than the
other ; but that kind which swells most, is ever the
best. Of the white I know but two sorts, and both
excellent ; one ripe in the beginning of July, the other
in the end of September, and is yellower than the first ;
but this is hard to be found among us, and difficult to
raise, though an excellent fruit.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 47

Of apricots, the best are the common old sort, and

the largest Masculin ; of which this last is much im-
proved by budding upon a peach stock. I esteem
none of this fruit but the Brussel's apricot, which
grows a standard, and is one of the best fruits we
have ; and which I first brought over among us.
The number of good pears, especially summer, is
very great, but the best are the Blanquet, Robin,
Rousselet, Rosati, Sans, Pepin, Jargonelle. Of the
autumn, the Buree, the Vertelongue, and the Bergamot.
Of the winter, the Vergoluz, Chasseray, St. Michael,
St. Germain, and Ambret : I esteem the Bon-Cretien
with us good for nothing but to bake.
Of plums, the best are St. Julian, St. Catharine,
white and blue Pedrigon, Queen-mother, Sheen-plum,
and Che6ton.
Beyond the sorts I have named, none I think need
trouble himself, but multiply these, rather than make
room for more kinds ; and I am content to leave this
register, having been so often desired it by my friends
upon their designs of gardening.
I need say nothing of apples, being so well known
among us ; but the best of our climate, and I believe
of all others, is the Golden Pippin ; and for all sorts
of uses : the next is the Kentish pippin ; but these I
48 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

think are as far from their perfection with us as grapes,

and yield to those of Normandy, as these to those
in Anjou, and even these to those in Gascony. In
other fruits the defect of sun is in a great measure
supplied by the advantage of walls.
The next care to that of suiting trees with the soil,
is that of suiting fruits to the position of walls.
Grapes, peaches, and winter-pears, to be good, must
be planted upon full south, or south-east; figs are
best upon south-east, but will do well upon east and
south-west : the west are proper for cherries, plums
or apricots ; but all of them are improved by a south
wall both as to early and taste, north, north-west, or
north-east, deserve nothing but greens ; these should
be divided by woodbines or jessamines between every
green, and the other walls, by a vine between every
fruit-tree ; the best sorts upon the south walls, the
common white and black upon east and west, because
the other trees being many of them (especially peaches)
were transitory; some apt to die with hard winters,
others to be cut down and make room for new fruits :
without this method the walls are left for several years
unfurnished ; whereas the vines on each side cover the
void space in one summer, and when the other trees
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 49

are grown, make only a pillar between them of two or

three feet broad.
Whoever would have the best fruits in the most
perfection our climate will allow, should not take care
of giving them as much sun, but also as much air as he
can ; no tree, unless dwarf, should be suffered to grow
with forty feet of your best walls, but the farther they
lie open, is still the better. Of all others, this care is
most necessary in vines, which are observed abroad to
make the best wines, where they lie upon sides of hills,
and so most exposed to the air and the wind. The way
of pruning them too, is best learned from the vineyards,
where you see nothing in winter, but what looks like a
dead stump ; and upon our walls they should be left
but like a ragged staff, not above two or three eyes at
most upon the bearing branches ; and the lower the
vine and fewer the branches, the grapes will be still the
better.
The best figure of a garden is either a square or an]
oblong, and either upon a flat or a descent ; they have 1
all their beauties, but the best I esteem an oblong upon j
a descent. The beauty, the air, the view makesj
amends for the expense, which is very great in finish-
ing and supporting the terrace-walks, in levelling the
 50 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

parterres, and in the stone-stairs that are necessary from

one to the other.
s^ The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either
at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hert-
fordshire, when I knew it about thirty years ago. It
was made by the Countess of Bedford, esteemed among
the greatest wits of her time, and celebrated by Doctor
Donne; and with very great care, excellent con-
trivance, and much cost ; but greater sums may be
thrown away without effect or honour, if there want
sense in proportion to money, or if Nature be . not
followed ; which I take to be the great rule in this,
and perhaps in everything else, as far as the conduct
not only of our lives, but our governments. And
whether the greatest of mortal men should attempt
the forcing of Nature, may best be judged, by observ-
ing how seldom God Almighty does it himself, by so
few, true and undisputed miracles, as we see or hear in
the world. For my own part, I know not three wiser
precepts for the conduct either of princes or private
men, than —
Servare modum, finempue tueri,
Naturamque sequi.

Because I take the garden I have named to have

been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 51

in the figure and disposition, that I have ever seen, I

will describe it for a model to those that meet with
such a situation, and are above the regards of common
expense. It lies on the side of a hill, (upon which
the house stands) but not very steep. The length of
the house, where the best rooms, and of most use or
pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden, the
great parlours open into the middle of a terrace gravel-
walk that lies even with it, and which may be, as I
remember, about three hundred paces long, and broad
proportion ; the border set with standard laurels, and
at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-
trees out of flower and fruit : from this walk are three
descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each
end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into
quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two foun-
tains and eight statues in the several quarters ; at the
end of the terrace- walk are two summer-houses, and
the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large
cloisters, open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and
ending with two other summer-houses even with the
cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for
walks of shade, there being none other in the whole
parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces
covered with lead, and fenced with balusters ; and the
52 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

passage into these airy walks, is out of the two summer-

houses at the end of the first terrace- walk. The
cloister facing the south is covered with vines, and
would have been proper for an orange-house, and the
other for myrtles, or other more common greens ; and
had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this
piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as
it is now.
From the middle of this parterre is a descent by
many steps flying on each side of a grotto that lies
between them (covered with lead, and flat) into the
lower garden, which is all fruit-trees ranged about the
several quarters of a wilderness which is very shady ;
the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished
with figures of shell-rockwork, fountains and water-
works. If the hill had not ended with the lower
garden, and the wall were not bounded by a common
way that goes through the park, they might have added
a third quarter of all greens ; but this want is supplied
by a garden on the other side of the house, which is
all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with
rough rockwork and fountains.
This was Moor Park, when I was acquainted with
it, and the sweetest place, 1 think, that I have seen in
•my life, either before or since, at home or abroad ;
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 55

what it is now I can give little account, having passed

through several hands that have made great changes in
gardens as well as houses ; but the remembrance of
what it was, is too pleasant ever to forget, and there-
fore Ido not believe to have mistaken the figure of it,
which may serve for a pattern to the best gardens of
our manners, and that are most proper for our country^
and climate.
What I have said of the best forms of gardens, is ,
meant only of such as are in some sort regular ; for there
may be other forms wholly irregular, that may, for
ought I know, have more beauty than any of the
others ; but they must owe it to some extraordinary
dispositions of nature in the seat, or some great race of
fancy or judgment in the contrivance, which may pro-
duce many disagreeing parts into some figure, which
shall yet upon the whole, be very agreeable. Some-
thing of this I have seen in some places, but heard
more of it from others, who have lived much among
the Chinese ; a people, whose way of thinking seems
to lie as wide of ours in Europe, as their country does.
Among us, the beauty of building and planting is placed
chiefly in some certain proportions, symmetries, or
uniformities ; our walks and our trees ranged so, as
to answer one another, and at exact distances. The
 54 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

Chinese scorn this way of planting, and say a boy that

can tell an hundred, may plant walks of trees in straight
lines, and over against one another, and to what length
and extent he pleases. But their greatest reach of
imagination, is employed in contriving figures, where
the beauty shall be great, and strike the eye, but with-
out any order or disposition of parts, that shall be
commonly or easily observed. And though we have
hardly any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they have
a particular word to express it ; and where they find
it hit their eye at first sight, they say Th^ SJiarawadgijis
fine or is admirable, or any such expression of esteem.
And whoever observes the work upon the best Indian
gowns, or the painting upon their best screens or
r purcellans, will find their beauty is all of this kind,
(that is) without order. But I should hardly advise
X any of these attempts in the figure of gardens among
us ; they are adventures of too hard achievement for
any common hands ; and though there may be more
honour if they succeed well, yet there is more dis-
honour ifthey fail, and 'tis twenty to one they will ;
whereas in regular figures, 'tis hard to make any great
'T'and remarkable faults.
The picture I have met with in some relations
of a garden made by a Dutch governor of their
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 55

Colony, upon the Cape de Buen Esperace, is admir-

able, and described to be an oblong figure, of very
large extent, and divided into four quarters by long
and cross walks, ranged with all sorts of orange-
trees, lemons, limes and citrons ; each of these four
quarters is planted with the trees, fruits, flowers and
plants that are native and proper to each of the four
parts of the world ; so as in this one enclosure are
to be found the several gardens of Europe, Asia,
Africa and America. There could not be, in my
mind, a greater thought of a gardener, nor a nobler
idea of a garden, not better suited or chosen for the
climate, which is about thirty degrees, and may pass
for the Hesperides of our age, whatever or wherever
the other was. Yet this is agreed by all to have been
in the islands or continent upon the south-west of
Africa, but what their forms or their fruits were,
none, that I know, pretend to tell ; nor whether their
golden apples were for taste, or only for sight, as those
of Montezuma were in Mexico, who had large trees,
with stocks, branches, leaves and fruits, all admirably
composed and wrought of gold ; but this was only
stupendous in cost and art, and answers not at all, in
my opinion, the delicious varieties of Nature in other
gardens.
56 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

What I have said of gardening, is perhaps enough

for any gentleman to know, so as to make no great
faults, nor be much imposed upon in the designs of that
kind, which I think ought to be applauded, and en-
couraged inall countries. That and building being a
sort of creation, that raise beautiful fabricks and figures
out of nothing, that make the convenience and pleasure
of all private habitations, that employ many hands, and
circulate much money among the poorer sort and
artisans, that are a public service to one's country,
by the example as well as effect, which adorn the
scene, improve the earth, and even the air itself in
some degree. The rest that belongs to this subject,
must be a gardener's part ; upon whose skill, diligence,
and care, the beauty of the grounds, and excellence of
the fruits will much depend. Though if the soil and
sorts be well chosen, well suited, and disposed to the
walls, the ignorance or carelessness of the servants can
hardly leave the master disappointed.
1 will not enter further upon his trade, than by three
short directions or advices : first, in all plantations,
either for his master or himself, to draw his trees out
of some nursery that is upon a leaner and lighter soil
than his own where he removes them ; without this
care they will not thrive in several years, perhaps
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 57

never ; and must make way for new, which should be

avoided all that can be; for life is too short and
uncertain, to be renewing often your plantations. The
walls of your garden without their furniture, look as
ill as those of your house ; so that you cannot dig up
your garden too often, nor too seldom cut them down.
The second is, in all trees you raise, to have some
regard to the stock, as well as the graft or bud ; for
the first will have a share in giving taste and season to
the fruits it produces, how little soever it is usually
observed by our gardeners. I have found grafts of
the same tree upon a Bon-cretien stock, bring
Chasseray pears, that lasted till March, but with a
rind green and rough : and others, upon a Metre-John
stock, with a smooth and yellow skin, which were
rotten in November. I am apt to think, all the differ-
ence between the St. Michael and the Ambrette pear
(which has puzzled our gardeners) is only what
comes from this variety of the stocks ; and by this,
perhaps, as well as by raising from stones and kernels,
most of the new fruits are produced every age. So
the grafting a crab upon a white-thorn brings the
Lazarolli, a fruit esteemed at Rome, though I do not
find it worth cultivating here ; and I believe the Cidrato
(or Hermaphrodite) came from budding a citron upon
58 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

an orange. The best peaches are raised by buds of

the best fruits upon stocks, growing from stones of the
best peaches ; and so the best apples and pears, from
the best kinds grafted upon stocks, from kernels also
of the best sorts, with respect to the season, as well as
beauty and taste. And I believe so many excellent
winter pears, as have come into France since forty
years, may have been found out by grafting summer
pears of the finest taste and most water, upon winter
stocks.
The third advice is, to take the greatest care and
pains in preserving your trees from the worst disease,
to which those of the best fruits are subject in the best
soils, and upon the best walls. 'Tis what has not
been (that I know of) taken notice of with us, till I
was forced to observe it by the experience of my
gardens, though I have since met with it in books
both ancient and modern. I found my vines, peaches,
apricots and plums upon my best south walls, and
sometimes upon my west, apt for several years to a
soot, or smuttiness upon their leaves first, and then
upon their fruits, which were good for nothing the
years they were so affected. My orange-trees were
likewise subject to it, and never prospered while they
were so ; and I have known some collections quite
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 59

destroyed by it. But I cannot say, that I ever found

either my figs or pears infected with it, nor any trees
upon my east walls, though I do not well conjecture
at the reason. The rest were so spoiled with it, that
I complained to several of the oldest and best gardeners
of England, who knew nothing of it, but that they
often fell into the same misfortune, and esteemed it
some blight of the spring. I observed after some
years, that the diseased trees had very frequent upon
their stocks and branches a small insect of a dark
brown colour, figured like a shield, and about the size
of a large wheat-corn : they stuck close to the bark,
and in many places covered it, especially about the
joints : in winter they are dry, and thin-shelled ; but
in spring they begin to grow soft, and to fill with
moisture, and to throw a spawn like a black dust upon
the stocks, as well as the leaves and fruits.
I met afterwards with the mention of this disease,
as known among orange-trees, in a book written upon
that subject in Holland, and since in Pausanias, as a
thing so much taken notice of in Greece, that the
author describes a certain sort of earth which cures
Pediculos Vitis, or, the lice of the vine. This is of
all others the most pestilent disease of the best fruit-
trees, and upon the very best soils of gravel and sand
60 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

(especially where they are too hungry :) And is so

contagious, that it is propagated to new plants raised
from old trees that are infected, and spreads to new
ones that are planted near them, which makes me
imagine, that it lies in the root, and that the best cure
were by application there. But I have tried all soil
without effect, and can prescribe no other remedy,
than to prune your trees as close as you can, especially
the tainted wood, then to wash them very clean with
a wet brush, so as not to leave one shell upon them
that you can discern : And upon your oranges to pick
off every one that you can find, by turning every leaf,
as well as brushing clean the stocks and branches.
Without these cares and diligences, you had better
root up any trees that are infected, renew all the mold
in your borders or boxes, and plant new sound trees,
rather than suffer the disappointments and vexation of
your old ones.
I may perhaps be allowed to know something of
this trade, since I have so long allowed myself to be
good for nothing else, which few men will do, or
enjoy their gardens, without often looking abroad to
see how other matters play, what motions in the state,
and what invitations they may hope for into other
scenes.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 61

For my own part, as the country life, and this part

of it more particularly, were the inclination of my
youth itself, so they are the pleasure of my age ; and
I can truly say, that among many great employments
that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or
sought for any one of them, but often endeavoured to
escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a
private scene, where a man may go his own way and
his own pace, in the common paths or circles of life.
Inter cuncta leges et percunctabere doctos
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum,
Quid curas minuat, quid te tibi reddat amicum,
Quid pure tranquillet, honos an dulce lucelium,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitas.
But above all, the learned read and ask
By what means you may gently pass your age,
What lessens care, what makes thee thine own friend,
What truly calms the mind ; honour, or wealth,
Or else a private path of stealing life ?

These are questions that a man ought at least to ask

himself, whether he asks others or no, and to choose
his course of life rather by his own humour and
temper, than by common accidents, or advice of
friends ; at least if the Spanish proverb be true, That
a fool inotus more in his otvn house, than a ivise man in
another's.
62 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

The measure of choosing well, is, whether a man

likes what he has chosen, which I thank God has
befallen me ; and though among the follies of my
life, building and planting have not been the least, and
have cost me more than I have the confidence to own ;
yet they have been fully recompensed by the sweetness
and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my
resolution taken of never entering again into any
publick employments, I have passed five years without
ever going once to town, though I am almost in sight
of it, and have a house there always ready to receive
me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as
some have thought it, but a mere want of desire or
humour to make so small a remove ; for when I am
in this corner I can truly say v/ith Horace,

Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus,

•Quid sentire putas, quid credis amice precare ?
Sit mihi quod nunc est etiam minus, ut mihi vivam,
Quod superest aevi, si quid superesse volent Dii.
Sit bona librorum, et provisae frugis in annum
Copia, ne dubiae fluitem spe pendulus horae,
Hoc satis est orasse Jovem qui donat et aufert.
Me when the cold Digentian stream revives,
What does my friend believe I think or ask ?
Let me yet less possess, so I may live,
Whate'er of life remains, unto myself.
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 65

May I have books enough, and one year's store^

Not to depend upon each doubtful hour ;
This is enough of mighty Jove to pray,
Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away.

That which makes the cares of gardening more

necessary, or at least more excusable, is, that all men
eat fruit that can get it ; so as the choice is, only
whether one will eat good or ill ; and between these
the difference is not greater in point of taste and
delicacy, than it is of health : for the first, I will only
say, that whoever has used to eat good, will do very
great penance when he comes to ill : and for the
other, I think nothing is more evident, than as ill or
unripe fruit is extremely unwholesome, and causes so
many untimely deaths, or so much sickness about
autumn, in all great cities where 'tis greedily sold as
well as eaten ; so no part of diet, in any season, is so
healthful, so natural, and so agreeable to the stomach,
as good and well-ripened fruits ; for this I make the
measure of their being good ; and let the kinds be
what they will, if they will not ripen perfectly in our
climate, they are better never planted, or never eaten.
I can say it for myself at least, and all my friends, that
the season of summer fruits is ever the season of health
with us, which I reckon from the beginning of June
64 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS

to the end of September, and for all sicknesses of the

stomach (from which most others are judged to
proceed) I do not think any that are like me, the
most subject to them, shall complain, whenever they
eat thirty or forty cherries before meals, or the like
proportion of strawberries, white figs, soft peaches, or
grapes perfectly ripe. But these after Michaelmas I
do not think wholesome with us, unless attended by
some fit of hot and dry weather, more than is usual
after that season ; when the frosts or the rain have
taken them, they grow dangerous, and nothing but the
autumn and winter pears are to be reckoned in season,
besides apples, which, with cherries, are of all others
the most innocent food, and perhaps the best physick.
Now, whoever will be sure to eat good fruit, must do
it out of a garden of his own ; for besides the choice
so necessary in the sorts, the soil, and so many other
circumstances that go to compose a good garden, and
produce good fruits, there is something very nice in
gathering them, and choosing the best, even from the
same tree. The best sorts of all among us, which
I esteem the white figs and the soft peaches, will not
carry without suffering. The best fruit that is bought,
has no more of the master's care, than how to raise
the greatest gains ; his business is to have as much
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 65

fruit as he can upon as few trees ; whereas the way to

have it excellent, is to have but little upon many trees.
So that for all things out of a garden, either of salads
or fruits, a poor man will eat better, that has one of
his own, than a rich man that has none. And this is
all I think of, necessary and useful to be known upon
this subject.
THE GARDEN

BY

ABRAHAM COWLEY
(1618-1667)
 THE GARDEN
To J. Evelyn, Esq.
I NEVER had any other desire so strong, and so
like to covetousness, as that one which I have had
always, that I might be master at last of a small house
and large garden, with very moderate conveniences
joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of
my life only to the culture of them and study of nature,
And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and entire
to lie,
In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.

Or, as Virgil has said, shorter and better for me, that
I might there
Studiis florere ignobilis ' oti :

(though I could wish that he had rather said, " nobilis

otii," when he spoke of his own). But several acci-
dents of my ill fortune have disappointed me hitherto,
and do still, of that felicity ; for though I have made the
first and hardest step to it, by abandoning all ambitions
and hopes in this world, and by retiring from the noise
• ^'rg- G„ iv. 564.
7o THE GARDEN

of all business and almost company, yet I stick still in

the inn of a hired house and garden, among weeds and
rubbish ; and without that pleasantest work of human
industry, the improvement of something which we call
(not very properly, but yet we call) our own. I am
gone out from Sodom, but I am not yet arrived at my
little Zoar. 0 let me escape thither (is it not a little one ?)
and my soul shall live. I do not look back yet ; but I
have been forced to stop, and make too many halts.
You may wonder, sir (for this seems a little too ex-
travagant and pindarical for prose), what I mean by all
this preface ; it is to let you know, that though I have
missed, like a chemist, my great end, yet I account my
affections and endeavours well rewarded by something
that I have met with by the bye ; which is, that they
have procured to me some part in your kindness and
esteem ; and thereby the honour of having my name
so advantageously recommended to posterity, by the
epistle you are pleased to prefix to the most useful
book that has been written in that kind,1 and which is
to last as long as months and years.
1 t/ie most useful book tliat has been written in that kind] Mr.
Evelyn's Kalendarium Hortense ; dedicated to Mr. Cowley. —
The title explains the propriety of the compliment, that this
book was to last as long as months and years.
 THE GARDEN 71

Among many other arts and excellences, which you

enjoy, I am glad to find this favourite of mine the
most predominant ; that you choose this for your wife,
though you have hundreds of other arts for your con-
cubines ;though you know them, and beget sons upon
them all (to which you are rich enough to allow great
legacies), yet the issue of this seems to be designed by
you to the main of the estate ; you have taken most
pleasure in it, and bestowed most charges upon its
education : and I doubt not to see that book, which
you are pleased to promise to the world, and of which
you have given us a large earnest in your calendar, as
accomplished, as any thing can be expected from an
extraordinary wit, and no ordinary expenses, and a
long experience. I know nobody that possesses more
private happiness than you do in your garden ; and yet
no man, who makes his happiness more public, by a
free communication of the art and knowledge of it to
others. All that I myself am able yet to do, is only
to recommend to mankind the search of that felicity,
which you instruct them how to find and to enjoy.
72 THE GARDEN

Happy art thou, whom God does bless

With the full choice of thine own happiness ;
And happier yet, because thou 'rt blest
With prudence, how to choose the best ;
In books and gardens thou hast plac'd aright
(Things, which thou well dost understand ;
And both dost make with thy laborious hand)
Thy noble, innocent delight :
And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet
Both pleasures more refin'd and sweet ;
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.
Oh, who would change these soft, yet solid joys,
For empty shows, and senseless noise !
And all which rank ambition breeds,
Which seem such beauteous flowers, and are such
poisonous weeds ?

When God did man to His own likeness make,

As much as clay, though of the purest kind,
By the great potter's art refin'd,
Could the divine impression take,
 THE GARDEN 73

He thought it fit to place him, where

A kind of heaven too did appear,
As far as earth could such a likeness bear :
That man no happiness might want,
Which earth to her first master could afford,
He did a garden for him plant
By the quick hand of His omnipotent word.
As the chief help and joy of human life,
He gave him the first gift ; first, ev'n before a wife.

For God, the universal architect,

'T had been as easy to erect
A Louvre or Escurial, or a tower
That might with heaven communication hold,
As Babel vainly thought to do of old :
He wanted not the skill or power ;
In the world's fabric those were shown,
And the materials were all his own.
But well he knew, what place would best agree
With innocence, and with felicity :
And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain ;
If any part of either yet remain,
If any part of either we expect,
74 THE GARDEN

This may our judgment in the search direct ;

God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain.

O blessed shades ! O gentle cool retreat

From all th' immoderate heat,
In which the frantic world does burn and sweat !
This does the lion-star, ambition's rage ;
This avarice, the dog-star's thirst assuage ;
Everywhere else their fatal power we see,
They make and rule man's wretched destiny :
They neither set, nor disappear,
But tyrannize o'er all the year ;
Whilst we ne'er feel their flame or influence here.
The birds that dance from bough to bough,
And sing above in every tree,
Are not from fears and cares more free,
Than we, who lie, or sit or walk below,
And should by right be singers too.
What princes choir of music can excel
That, which within this shade does dwell ?
To which we nothing pay or give ;
They, like all other poets live,
 THE GARDEN 75

Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains ;

'Tis well, if they become not prey :
The whistling winds add their less artful strains,
And a grave base the murmuring fountains play ;
Nature does all this harmony bestow,
But to our plants, art's music too,
The pipe, theorbo, and guitar we owe ;
The lute itself, which once was green and mute,
When Orpheus strook th' inspired lute,
The trees danc'd round, and understood
By sympathy the voice of wood.

These are the spells, that to kind sleep invite,

And nothing does within resistance make,
Which yet we moderately take ;
Who would not choose to be awake,
While he's encompass'd round with such delight,
To th' ear, the nose, the touch, the taste and sight ?
When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep x
A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep,
She od'rous herbs and flowers beneath him spread,
As the most soft and sweetest bed ;
Not her own lap would more have charm'd his head.
1 Virg. JEn., i. 695.
76 THE GARDEN

Who, that has reason, and his smell,

Would not among roses and jasmin dwell,
Rather than all his spirits choke
With exhalations of dirt and smoke ?
And all th' uncleanness, which does drown
In pestilential clouds a populous town ?
The earth itself breathes better perfumes here,
Than all the female men or women, there,
Not without cause, about them bear.

When Epicurus to the world had taught,

That pleasure was the chiefest good,
(And was, perhaps, i' th' right,1 if rightly understood)
His life he to his doctrine brought,
And in a garden's shade that sovereign pleasure sought :
Whoever a true epicure would be,
May there find cheap and virtuous luxury.
Vitellius his table, which did hold
As many creatures, as the ark of old ;
That fiscal table, to which every day
All countries did a constant tribute pay,

:' //;' right] The author had seen Gassendi's

work perhaps,
fine1 was, on this subject.
 THE GARDEN 77

Could nothing more delicious afford,

Than nature's liberality,
Help'd with a little art and industry,
Allows the meanest gard'ner's board.
The wanton taste no fish or fowl can choose,
For which the grape or melon she would lose ;
Though all th' inhabitants of sea and air
Be listed in the glutton's bill of fare,
Yet still the fruits of earth we see
Plac'd the third story * high in all her luxury.
VII

But with no sense the garden does comply,

None courts, or flatters, as it does the eye : -
When the great Hebrew king did almost strain
The wond'rous treasures of his wealth and brain,
His royal southern guest to entertain ;
Though she on silver floors did tread,
With bright Assyrian carpets on them spread,
To hide the metal's poverty.
1 Plac'd the third story] i. e. in the desert, which stands as the
third story in the fabric of modern luxury.
- But tvith no sense the garden does comply ,
Nmt courts, or flatters, as it does the eye~\ A little obscurely
expressed. The meaning is — The garden gratifies no sense,
it courts and flatters none, so much as it does the eye.
78 THE GARDEN

Though she look'd up to roofs of gold,

And nought around her could behold,
But silk and rich embroidery,
And Babylonian tapestry,
And wealthy Hiram's princely dye :
Though Ophir's starry stones met everywhere her eye ;
Though she herself, and her gay host were drest
With all the shining glories of the East ;
When lavish art her costly work had done,
The honour and the prize of bravery
Was by the garden from the palace won ;
And every rose and lily there did stand
Better attir'd by nature's hand : l
The case thus judg'd against the king we see,
By one, that would not be so rich, though wiser far
than he.

Nor does this happy place only dispense

Such various pleasures to the sense ;
Here health itself does live,
That salt of life, which does to all a relish give,
Its standing pleasure, and intrinsic wealth,
The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune, health.
1 Matth, vi. 29.
 THE GARDEN 79
The tree of life, when it in Eden stood,
Did its immortal head to heaven rear ;
It lasted a tall cedar, till the flood ;
Now a small thorny shrub it does appear ;
Nor will it thrive too everywhere :
It always here is freshest seen ;
'Tis only here an evergreen.
If, through the strong and beauteous fence
Of temperance and innocence,
And wholesome labours, and a quiet mind,
Any diseases passage find,
They must not think here to assail
A land unarm'd, or without a guard ;
They must fight for it, and dispute it hard,
Before they can prevail :
Scarce any plant is growing here,
Which against death some weapon does not bear,
Let cities boast, that they provide
For life the ornaments of pride ;
But 'tis the country and the field,
That furnish it with staff and shield.1

— staff and shield] i. e. bread and physic : the former, to

sustain man's life, and the latter, to guard it against disease
and sickness.
8o THE GARDEN

Where does the wisdom and the power divine

In a more bright and sweet reflection shine ?
Where do we finer strokes and colours see
Of the Creator's real poetry,
Than when we with attention look

Upon the third day's volume of the book ?

If we could open and intend our eye,
We all, like Moses, should espy
Ev'n in a bush the radiant Deity.
But we despise these his inferior ways
(Though no less full of miracle and praise):
Upon the flowers of heaven we gaze ;
The stars of earth l no wonder in us raise,
Though these perhaps do more, than they,
The life of mankind sway,
1 —flowers of heaven — stars of earth] A poetical conversion,
much to the taste of Mr. Cowley ; but the prettier and
easier, because many plants and flowers are of a radiate form,
and are called stars, not in the poet's vocabulary only, but in
that of the botanist and florist: as, on the other hand, the
6tars of heaven —

" Blushing in bright diversities of day — "

as the poet says of the garden's bloomy Led, very naturally
present themselves under the idea, and take the name, of
floivers.
 THE GARDEN 81

Although no part of mighty nature be

More stor'd with beauty, power, and mystery;
Yet to encourage human industry,
God has so order 'd, that no other part
Such space and such dominion leaves for art.

We nowhere art do so triumphant see,

As when it grafts or buds the tree :
In other things we count it to excel,
If it a docile scholar can appear
To nature, and but imitate her well ;
It overrules, and is her master here,
It imitates her Maker's power divine,
And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine
It does, like grace, the fallen tree restore
To its blest state of Paradise before :
Who would not joy to see His conquering hand
O'er all the vegetable world command ?
And the wild giants of the wood receive
What law He's pleased to give ?
He bids th' ill-natured crab produce
The gentler apple's winy juice ;
82 THE GARDEN

The golden fruit, that worthy is

Of Galatea's purple kiss ; l
He does the savage hawthorn teach
To bear the medlar and the pear ;
He bids the rustic plum to rear
A noble trunk, and be a peach.
Even Daphne's coyness he does mock,
And weds the cherry to her stock,
Though she refus'd Apollo's suit ;
Even she, that chaste and virgin tree,
Now wonders at herself, to see
That she's a mother made, and blushes in her fruit.

Methinks I see great Diocletian walk

In the Salonian garden's noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made :
I see him smile (methinks) as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain,
T' entice him to a throne again.
1 — that ivorthy is
Of Galatea's purple kiss] An idea, conceived, and expressed,
in the best manner of Shakespeare.
 THE GARDEN" 83
If I, ray friends (said he) should to you show
All the delights, which in these gardens grow ;
'Tis likelier much, that you should with me stay,
Than 'tis, that you should carry me away :
And trust me not, my friends, if every day,
I walk not here with more delight,
Than ever, after the most happy fight,
In triumph to the capitol I trod,
To thank the gods, and to be thought, myself almost
a god.
THE GARDEN OF CYRUS
MISCELLANIES

1. Upon Several Plants Mentioned

in Scripture.
2. Of Garlands.
3. On Grafting.

by
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
(1605-1682)
 THE GARDEN
OF
CYRUS ;
OR, THE QUINCUNCIAL LOZENGE :
OR, NET-WORK PLANTATIONS OF THE ANCIENTS ;
ARTIFICIALLY, NATURALLY, AND MYSTICALLY,
CONSIDERED.

By Sir Thomas Broivne.

Quid Quincunce speciosiusf qui, in quamcunque partem speetaveris,

rectus est f— Quinctiuax.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1658

 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY
TO MV WORTHV AND HONOURED FRIEND

NICHOLAS BACON, of GILL1NGHAM, ESQUIRE

Had I not observed that purblind men have dis-

coursed well of sight, and some without issue,1 excel-
lently of generation ; I, that was never master of any
considerable garden, had not attempted this subject.
But the earth is the garden of nature, and each fruitful
country a Paradise. Dioscorides made most of his
observations in his march about with Antonius ; and
Theophrastus raised his generalities chiefly from the
field.
Besides, we write no Herbal, nor can this volume
deceive you, who have handled the massiest thereof :
who know that three folios - are yet too little, and how
new herbals fly from America upon us : from per-
severing enquirers, and hold in89 those singularities, we
expect such descriptions. Wherein England is now
so exact, that it yields not to other countries.
1 Dr. Harvev. 2 Bauhin's Thiatrum Botamcum.
90 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

We pretend not to multiply vegetable divisions by

quincuncial and reticulate plants ; or erect a new phytol-
ogy.1 The field of knowledge hath been so traced, it
is hard to spring any thing new. Of old things we
write something new, if truth may receive addition, or
envy will have any thing new ; since the ancients
knew the late anatomical discoveries, and Hippocrates
the circulation.

You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights,

beyond the reach of exception. The Turks who
passed their days in gardens here, will have gardens
also hereafter ; and delighting in flowers on earth,
must have lilies and roses in heaven. In garden
delights 'tis not easy to hold a mediocrity ; that
insinuating pleasure is seldom without some extremity.
The ancients venially delighted in flourishing gardens ;
many were florists that knew not the true use of a
flower ; and in Pliny's days none had directly treated
of that subject. Some commendably affected plant-
ations of venomous vegetables, some confined their
delights unto single plants, and Cato seemed to dote
upon cabbage ; while the ingenuous delight of tulipists
1 As did Erasmus Darwin later.
 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 91

stands saluted with hard language, even by their own

professors.
That in this garden discourse, we range into extra-
neous things, and many parts of art and nature, we
follow herein the example of old and new plantations,
wherein noble spirits contented not themselves with
trees, but by the attendance of aviaries, fish-ponds, and
all variety of animals they made their gardens the
epitome of the earth, and some resemblance of the
secular shows of old. . . .
X.rzii.A, May I, 1 65 8
 CHAPTER I
On the Gardens of Antiquity — Gardens of Paradise — Pensile, or
hanging, of Babylon, ascribed to Semiramis — Those of Nebu-
chodonosor — Namc(Paradise),Persian origin of — Cyrus, the elder,
so improved the gardens of Babylon, that he -was thought the
author of them — Cyrus, the younger, brother of Artaxerxes, a
manual planter of gardens — Xenophon's description of his planta-
tion at Sardis — Explanation of the rhomboidal or lozenge formation
— Compared to St. Andrew's Cross — And the Egyptian crux
ansata — Dr. Young's remark on this last — The Tenupha of the
J eivish rabbins — The quincunx much used by the ancients ; little
discoursed of by the moderns — Considerable, for its several commo-
dities, mysteries, parallelisms , and resemblances, both in nature
and art — Used in the Gardens of Babylon and Alcinous ; the
plantations of Diomecfs father, and Ulysses ; in those described by
Theophrastus and Aristotle and in later plantations — Probably by
Noah, and if so, why not before the food? — In Abraham's grove
at Beersheba ; in the garden of Solomon — In paradise the tree of
knowledge would supply a centre and rule of decussation.

That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana

the fourth day after their nativities, according to
Gentile theology, may pass for no blind apprehension
of the creation of the sun and moon, in the work of

93
94 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

the fourth day : when the diffused light contracted

into orbs, and shooting rays of those luminaries.
Plainer descriptions there are from Pagan pens, of the
creatures of the fourth day. While the divine philo-
sopher unhappily omitteth the noblest part of the third,
and Ovid (whom many conceive to have borrowed
his description from Moses), coldly deserting the
remarkable account of the text, in three words
describeth this work of the third day, — the vegetable
creation, and first ornamental scene of nature, — the
primitive food of animals, and first story of physic in
dietetical conservation.
For though Physic may plead high, from that
medical act of God, in casting so deep a sleep upon
our first parent, and Chirurgery find its whole art, in
that one passage concerning the rib of Adam ; yet is
there no rivality with Garden contrivance and Herbery ;
for if Paradise were planted the third day of the
creation, as wiser divinity concludeth, the nativity
thereof was too early for horoscopy : gardens were
before gardeners, and but some hours after the earth.
Of deeper doubt is its topography and local design-
ation ; yet being the primitive garden, and without
much controversy seated in the east, it is more than
probable the first curiosity, and cultivation of plants,
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 95

most flourished in those quarters. And since the ark

of Noah first touched upon some mountains of Armenia,
the planting art arose again in the east, and found its
revolution not far from the place of its nativity, about
the plains of those regions. And if Zoroaster were
either Cham, Chus, or Mizraim, they were early
proficients therein, who left, as Pliny delivereth, a work
of Agriculture.
However, the account of the pensile or hanging
gardens of Babylon, if made by Semiramis, the third
or fourth from Nimrod, is of no slender antiquity ;
which being not framed upon ordinary level of ground,
but raised upon pillars, admitting under-passages, we
cannot accept as the first Babylonian gardens, — but a
more eminent progress and advancement in that art
than any that went before it ; somewhat answering or
hinting the old opinion concerning Paradise itself, with
many conceptions elevated above the plan of the
earth.
Nebuchodonosor (whom some will have to be the
famous Syrian king of Diodorus) beautifully repaired
that city, and so magnificently built his hanging
gardens,1 that from succeeding writers he had the
honour of the first. From whence overlooking Baby-
1 Josephus.
96 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

Ion, and all the region about it, he found no circum-

scription to the eye of his ambition ; till over-delighted
with the bravery of this Paradise, in his melancholy
metamorphosis he found the folly of that delight, and
a proper punishment in the contrary habitation — in
wild plantations and wanderings of the fields.
The Persian gallants, who destroyed this monarchy,
maintained their botanical bravery. Unto whom we
owe the very name of Paradise, wherewith we meet
not in Scripture before the time of Solomon, and con-
ceived originally Persian. The word for that disputed
garden expressing, in the Hebrew, no more than a
field enclosed, which from the same root is content to
derive a garden and a buckler.
Cyrus the Elder, brought up in woods and moun-
tains, when time and power enabled, pursued the dictate
of his education, and brought the treasures of the field
into rule and circumscription. So nobly beautifying
the hanging gardens of Babylon, that he was also
thought to be the author thereof.
Ahasuerus (whom many conceive to have been
Artaxerxes Longi-manus), in the country and city of
flowers, and in an open garden, entertained his princes
and people, while Vashti more modestly treated the
ladies within the palace thereof.
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 97

But if, as some opinion,1 King Ahasuerus were Arta-

xerxes Memnon, that found a life and reign answerable
unto his great memory, our magnified Cyrus was his
second brother, who gave the occasion of that
memorable work, and almost miraculous retreat of
Xenophon. A person of high spirit and honour,
naturally a king, though fatally prevented by the harm-
less chance of post-geniture ; not only a lord of
gardens, but a manual planter thereof, disposing his
trees, like his armies, in regular ordination. So that
while old Laertes hath found a name in Homer for
pruning hedges, and clearing away thorns and briars ;
while King Attalus lives for his poisonous plantations
of aconites, henbane, hellebore, and plants hardly
admitted within the walls of Paradise ; while many of
the ancients do poorly live in the single names of
vegetables ; all stories do look upon Cyrus as the
splendid and regular planter.
According whereto Xenophon - describeth his gallant
plantation at Sardis, thus rendered by Strebaeus.
" Arbores pari intervallo sitas, rectos ordines, et omnia
perpulchre in Quincuncem 3 direct a." Which we shall
take for granted as being accordingly rendered by the
1 Plutarch's Lift of Artaxerxts. 2 In (Economko.
3 optioi 5e 61 <nx0i are tne Greek words.
H
98 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

most elegant of the Latins, and by no made term, but

in use before by Varro. That is, the rows and orders
so handsomely disposed, or five trees so set together,
that a regular angularity, and thorough prospect, was
left on every side. Owing this name not only unto
the quintuple number of trees, but the figure declaring
that number, which being double at the angle, makes
up the letter X, that is, the emphatical decussation, or
fundamental figure.
Now though, in some ancient and modern practice,
the area, or decussated plot might be a perfect square,
answerable to a Tuscan pedestal, and the quinquernio or
cinque point of a dye, wherein by diagonal lines the
intersection was rectangular ; accommodable unto
plantations of large growing trees, and we must not
deny ourselves the advantage of this order ; yet shall
we chiefly insist upon that of Curtius 1 and Porta,2 in
their brief description hereof. Wherein the decussis is
made within in a longilateral square, with opposite
angles, acute and obtuse at the intersection, and so
upon progression making a rhombus or lozenge figur-
ation, which seemeth very agreeable unto the original
figure. Answerable whereunto we observe the decus-
sated characters in many consulary coins, and even in
* De Hortis. s In Villa.
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 99

those of Constantine and his sons, which pretend their

pattern in the sky ; the crucigerous ensign carried this
figure, not transversely or rectangularly intersected, but
in a decussation, after the form of an Andrean or
Burgundian cross, which answereth this description.

Of this quincuncial ordination the ancients practised

much, discoursed little ; and the moderns have nothing
enlarged ; which he that more nearly considereth, in
the form of its square rhombus, and decussation, with
the several commodities, mysteries, parallelisms, and
resemblances, both in art and nature, shall easily discern
the elegancy of this order.
That this was in some ways of practice in divers and
distant nations, hints or deliveries there are from no
slender antiquity. In the hanging gardens of Babylon,
from Abydenus, Eusebius, and others, Curtius de-
scribeth this rule of decussation.1 In the memorable
garden of Alcinous, anciently conceived an original
fancy from Paradise, mention there is of well-contrived
order ; for so hath Didymus and Eustachius expounded
the emphatical word. Diomedes, describing the rural
possessions of his father, gives account in the same

1 Decussatio ipsa jucundum ac peramoenum conspectum

prsebuit. — Di Hortis, lib. 6.
ioo THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

language of trees orderly planted. And Ulysses being

a boy, was promised by his father forty fig-trees, and
fifty rows of vines producing all kinds of grapes.
That the eastern inhabitants of India made use of
such order, even in open plantations, is deducible from
Theophrastus ; who, describing the trees whereof they
made their garments, plainly delivereth that they were
planted kclt' op^ovs, and in such order that at a distance
men would mistake them for vineyards. The same
seems confirmed in Greece from a singular expression
in Aristotle l concerning the order of vines, delivered
by a military term representing the orders of soldiers,
which also confirmeth the antiquity of this form yet
used in vineal plantations.
That the same was used in Latin plantations is
plainly confirmed from the commending pen of Varro
Quintilian, and handsome description of Virgil,
" Indulge ordinibus, nee secius omnis in unguem,
Arboritus positis, secto via limite quadret."
Georg. II.
1 Polit. 7.
 CHAPTER II

The quincuncial form adopted in the Arts — It is employed in various

contrivances ; in architecture — In the crowns of the ancients;
their beds, seats, lattices — In nets, by lapidaries and sculptors —
In the rural charm against dodder ; in the game of pentalithismus ;
in ligatures andforcipal instruments — In the Roman battalia, ana
Grecian cavalry — In the Macedonian phalanx ; the ancient cities
built in square, or parallelogram — In the labyrinth of Crete,
probably in the ark, the table of shew bread, and those of the laiv
— Several beds of the ancients mentioned.

That the networks and nets of antiquity were little

different in the form from ours at present, is confirm-
able from the nets in the hands of the retiary gladiators,
the proper combatants with the secutores. To omit
the ancient conopeion or gnat-net of the ^Egyptians,
the inventors of that artifice ; the rushy labyrinths of
Theocritus ; the nosegay nets, which hung from the
head under the nostrils of princes ; and that uneasy
metaphor of reticulum jecoris, which some expound
the lobe, we the caul above the liver. As for that
famous network of Vulcan, which inclosed Mars and
Venus, and caused that unextinguishable laugh in
heaven, — since the gods themselves could not discern
it, we shall not pry into it : although why Vulcan
bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should
first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythology.
 CHAPTER III

The qulncuncial form observable, in many of the -works of nature — To

pass over the constellations , ivefind it in gypsum — In the asterias ;
in the juli of several plants ; in the fiozuers and seed-heads of
others ; in some fruits ; in the netivork of some sea-iveeds —
In teazel, bur, thistle, and elder — //; sun-fozuer,fr- apples, Isfc. —
In the rudiment al spring of seeds — The process of germination con-
sidered— Dr. Poivers letter on this subject, ivith B.'s ansiuer —
Digression, on the production of one creature from the body of
another — Explained of the ichneumonida, and entozoa — The number
five exists in a number of instances in the leaves and parts of
fiozvers, and is remarkable in every circle — Notice of Mr. Cole-
brooke's paper on dichotomous and quinary arrangements — Other
instances of the number fve — In animal figurations ; in some
insects ; and in honey-comb — /// the eyes, eggs, and cells of insects ;
in the skins of snakes, the tail of the beaver — In the skins and feet

of birds, the scales offish, the skin of man, Is'c. — In many of the
internal membranes of man and animals — The motion of animals
quincuncial — Cruciform appearances in many plants — Various
analogies traced in vegetables, animals, and insects — Proportions
in the motive parts of animals and birds, and obscurely in plants
— Modern observations hereon.

Now although this elegant ordination of vegetables

hath found coincidence or imitation in sundry works of
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 103

art, yet is it not also destitute of natural examples ;

and, though overlooked by all, was elegantly observable,
in several works of nature.

The same is observably effected in the j'ulus, catkins,

or pendulous excrescencies of several trees ; of walnuts,
alders, and hazels, which hanging all the winter, and
maintaining their network close, by the expansion
thereof are the early foretellers of the spring : dis-
coverable also in long pepper, and elegantly in the
jiilus of calamus aromatlcus, so plentifully growing with
us, in the first palms of willows, and in the flowers of
sycamore, petasites, asphodelus, and b/atfaria, before
explication. After such order stand the flowery
branches in our best spread verbascum, and the seeds
about the spicous head or torch of thapsus barbatus, in
as fair a regularity as the circular and wreathed order
will admit, which advanceth one side of the square,
and makes the same rhomboidal. In the squamous
heads of scabious, knapweed, and the elegant jacea
pinea, and in the scaly composure of the oak rose which
some years most aboundeth. After this order hath
nature planted the leaves in the head of the common
and prickled artichoke, wherein the black and shining
flies do shelter themselves, when they retire from the
io4 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

purple flower about it. The same is also found in the

pricks, sockets, and impressions of the seeds, in the
pulp or bottom thereof; wherein do elegantly stick
the fathers of their mother : to omit the quincuncial
specks on the top of the miscle-berry, especially that
which grows upon the tiiia, or lime tree ; and the
remarkable disposure of those yellow fringes about the
purple pestil of Aaron, and elegant clusters of dragons,
so peculiarly secured by nature, with an umbrella or
skreening leaf about them.

The rose at first is thought to have been of five

leaves, as it yet groweth wild among us, but in the
most luxuriant, the calicular leaves do still maintain
that number. But nothing is more admired than the
five brethren of the rose, and the strange disposure of
the appendices or beards, in the calicular leaves thereof,
which in despair of resolution is tolerably salved from
this contrivance, best ordered and suited for the free
closure of them before explication. For those two
which are smooth, and of no beard, are contrived to
lie undermost, as without prominent parts, and fit to
be smoothly covered ; the other two which are beset
with beards on either side, stand outward and uncovered,
but the fifth or half-bearded leaf is covered on the bare
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 105

side, but on the open side stands free, and bearded like
the other.
Besides, a large number of leaves have five divisions,
and may be circumscribed by a pentagon or figure of
five angles, made by right lines from the extremity
of their leaves, as in maple, vine, fig-tree ; but five-
leaved flowers are commonly disposed circularly about
the stylus, according to the higher geometry of nature,
dividing a circle by five radii, which concur not to
make diameters, as in quadrilateral and sexangular
intersections.
 CHAPTER IV

On the various conveniences and delights of the quincunx — //; the due
proportion of earth, alloived by it— In the room afforded for equal
spreading of the trees, and the due circulation of air — In the
action of the sun — In the greatest economy of space — In mutual
shelter for currents of -winds — Effect of -water and oil on the
germination of seeds — Note thereon — Whether ivy -would do less
injury in this arrangement ? — Great variety afforded by this order
— Grateful to the eye by its regular green shade — Seeds lie in
perpetual shade — This order is agreeable to the eye, as consonant
to the angles observable in the la-ws of optics and acoustics — Plato
chose this figure to illustrate the motion of the soul.

Now if for this order we affect coniferous and

tapering trees, particularly the cypress, which grows in
a conical figure ; we have found a tree not only of
great ornament, but, in its essentials, of affinity unto
this order : a solid rhombus being made by the con-
version of two equicrural cones, as Archimedes hath
defined. And these were the common trees about
Babylon, and the East, whereof the ark was made :
and Alexander found no trees so accommodable to
106
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 107

build his Davy : — and this we rather think, to be the

tree mentioned in the Canticles, which stricter botanol-
ogy will hardly allow to be camphire.
And if delight or ornamental view invite a comely
disposure by circular amputations, as is elegantly per-
formed inhawthorns, then will they answer the figures
made by the conversion of a rhombus, which maketh
two concentrical circles ; the greater circumference
being made by the lesser angles, the lesser by the
greater.
The cylindrical figure of trees is virtually contained
and latent in this order ; a cylinder or long round
being made by the conversion or turning of a parallel-
ogram, and most handsomely by a long square, which
makes an equal, strong, and lasting figure in trees,
agreeable unto the body and motive part of animals,
the greatest number of plants, and almost all roots,
though their stalk be angular, and of many corners,
which seem not to follow the figure of their seeds ;
since many angular seeds send forth round stalks, and
spherical seeds arise from angular spindles, and many
rather conform unto their roots, as the round stalks ot
bulbous roots and in tuberous roots stems of like figure.
But why, since the largest number of plants maintain a
circular figure, there are so few with teretous or long
io8 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

round leaves ? Why coniferous trees are tenuifolious

or narrow-leafed ? Why plants of few or no joints
have commonly round stalks ? Why the greatest
number of hollow stalks are round stalks ; or why in
this variety of angular stalks the quadrangular most
exceedeth, were too long a speculation ? Meanwhile
obvious experience may find, that in plants of divided
leaves above, nature often beginneth circularly in the
two first leaves below, while in the singular plant of
ivy she exerciseth a contrary geometry, and beginning
with angular leaves below, rounds them in the upper
branches.
Nor can the rows in this order want delight, as
carrying an aspect answerable unto the dipteros hypte-
thros, or double order of columns open above ; the
opposite ranks of trees standing like pillars in the
cavedia of the courts of famous buildings, and the
porticoes of the templa subdialia of old ; somewhat
imitating the peristylia or cloister-buildings, and the
exedne of the ancients, wherein men discoursed,
walked, and exercised ; for that they derived the rule
of columns from trees, especially in their proportional
diminutions, is illustrated by Vitruvius from the shafts
of fir and pine. And, though the inter-arboration do
imitate the areostylos, or thin order, not strictly
 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 109
answering the proportion of inter-columniations : yet
in many trees they will not exceed the intermission of
the columns in the court of the Tabernacle ; which
being an hundred cubits long, and made up by twenty
pillars, will afford no less than intervals of five
cubits.
Beside, in this kind of aspect the sight being not
diffused, but circumscribed between long parallels and
the €7rto-Ktacr/xos and adumbration from the branches, it
frameth a penthouse over the eye, and maketh a quiet
vision : — and therefore in diffused and open aspects,
men hollow their hand above their eye, and make an
artificial brow, whereby they direct the dispersed rays
of sight, and by this shade preserve a moderate light in
the chamber of the eye ; keeping the pupilla plump
and fair, and not contracted or shrunk, as in light and
vagrant vision.
And therefore Providence hath arched and paved
the great house of the world, with colours of mediocrity,
that is, blue and green, above and below the sight,
moderately terminating the acies of the eye. For
most plants, though green above ground, maintain their
original white below it, according to the candour of
their seminal pulp : and the rudimental leaves do first
appear in that colour, observable in seeds sprouting in
no THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

water upon their first foliation. Green seeming to be

the first supervenient, or above ground complexion of
vegetables, separable in many upon ligature or inhuma-
tion, as succory, endive, artichokes, and which is also
lost upon fading in the autumn.
 CHAPTER V

On the mysteries and secrets of this order — Five the number of justice,
called by Plutarch the divisive number, justly dividing the entities
of the "world — Opinions of the ablest modern naturalists on the
quinary arrangement — The conjugal number ; character of genera-
tion— A stable number, as -we never fnd animals ivith f-oe legs,
nor ivith ten — Query as to Phalangiavt — This number often to be
observed in scriptural, medical, astrological, cabalistical, magical
examples — Concluding passage — The Quincunx cf Heaven — Night
— Sleep.

But the quincunx of heaven runs low, and 'tis time

to close the five ports of knowledge. We are un-
willing to spin out our awaking thoughts into the
phantasms of sleep, which often continueth precogita-
tions ; making cables of cobwebs, and wildernesses of
handsome groves. Beside Hippocrates hath spoke so
little, and the oneirocritical masters have left such frigid
interpretations from plants, that there is little encourage-
ment to dream of Paradise itself. Nor will the
sweetest delight of gardens afford much comfort in
sleep ; wherein the dulness of that sense shakes hands
ii2 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

with delectable odours ; and though in the bed of

Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the
ghost of a rose.
Night, which Pagan theology could make the
daughter of Chaos, affords no advantage to the descrip-
tion of order ; although no lower than that mass can
we derive its genealogy. All things began in order,
so shall they end, and so shall they begin again ;
according to the ordainer of order and mystical
mathematicks of the city of heaven.
Though Somnus in Homer be sent to rouse up
Agamemnon, I find no such effects in these drowsy
approaches of sleep. To keep our eyes open longer,
were but to act our Antipodes. The huntsmen are up
in America, and they are already past their first sleep
in Persia. But who can be drowsy at that hour which
freed us from everlasting sleep ? or have slumbering
thoughts at that time, when sleep itself must end, and
as some conjecture all shall awake again.
 MISCELLANIES,
By Sir Thomas Browne

OBSERVATIONS UPON SEVERAL PLANTS

MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE

Sir,1 — Though many ordinary heads run smoothly

over the Scripture, yet I must acknowledge it is one of
the hardest books I have met with ; and therefore well
deserveth those numerous comments, expositions, and
annotations, which make up a good part of our libraries.
However, so affected I am therewith, that I wish
there had been more of it, and a larger volume of that
divine piece, which leaveth such welcome impressions,
and somewhat more, in the readers, than the words and
sense after it. At least, who would not be glad that
many things barely hinted were at large delivered in it ?
The particulars of the dispute between the doctors and
our Saviour could not but be welcome to those who
have every word in honour which proceedeth from his
mouth, or was otherwise delivered by him ; and so
1 " Most of these letters were written to Sir Nicholas
Bacon." — Evelyn's note.
ii3 I
 ii4 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

would be glad to be assured, what he wrote with his

finger on the ground : but especially to have a particular
of that instructing narration or discourse which he made
unto the disciples after his resurrection, where 'tis said :
" And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he
expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things
concerning himself."
But, to omit theological obscurities, you must needs
observe that most sciences do seem to have something
more nearly to consider in the expressions of the
Scripture.
Astronomers find herein the names but of few stars,
scarce so many as in Achilles's buckler in Homer, and
almost the very same. But in some passages of the
Old Testament they think they discover the zodiacal
course of the sun ; and they, also, conceive an astro-
nomical sense in that elegant expression of St. James
" concerning the father of lights, with whom there is
no variableness, neither shadow of turning : " and
therein an allowable allusion unto the tropical con-
version ofthe sun, whereby ensueth a variation of heat,
light, and also of shadows from it. But whether the
stella erratica or wandering stars, in St. Jude, may be
referred to the celestial planets or some meteorological
wandering stars, ignes fatui, stella cadentes et erratic*, or
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 115

had any allusion unto the impostor Barchochebas or

Stellae Filius, who afterward appeared, and wandered
about in the time of Adrianus, they leave unto
conjecture.
Chirurgeons may find their whole art in that one
passage, concerning the rib which God took out of
Adam ; that is, their 8icup€<ris in opening the flesh,
e^atpccts in taking out the rib ; and avvOecris in closing
and healing the part again.
Rhetoricians and orators take singular notice of very
many excellent passages, stately metaphors, noble
tropes, and elegant expressions, not to be found or
paralleled in any other author.
Mineralists look earnestly into the twenty-eighth of
Job ; take special notice of the early artifice in brass
and iron, under Tubal Cain[; and find also mention of
gold, silver, brass, tin, lead, iron ; beside refining,
soldering, dross, nitre, salt-pits, and in some manner
also of antimony.
Gemmary naturalists read diligently the precious
stones in the holy city of the Apocalypse ; examine
the breast -plate of Aaron, and various gems upon it ;
and think the second row the nobler of the four.
They wonder to find the art of engravery so ancient
upon precious stones and signets ; together with the
n6 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

ancient use of ear-rings and bracelets. And are pleased

to find pearl, coral, amber, and crystal, in those sacred
leaves, according to our translation. And when they
often meet with flints and marbles, cannot but take
notice that there is no mention of the magnet or load-
stone, which in so many similitudes, comparisons, and
allusions, could hardly have been omitted in the works
of Solomon : if it were true that he knew either the
attractive or directive power thereof, as some have
believed.
Navigators consider the ark, which was pitched
without and within, and could endure the ocean with-
out mast or sails : they take special notice of the
twenty-seventh of Ezekiel ; the mighty traffic and
great navigation of Tyre, with particular mention of
their sails, their masts of cedar, oars of oak, their
skilful pilots, mariners, and caulkers ; as also of the long
voyages of the fleets of Solomon ; of Jehosaphat's ships
broken at Ezion-Geber ; of the notable voyage and ship-
wreck of St. Paul so accurately delivered in the Acts.
Oneirocritical diviners apprehend some hints of their
knowledge, even from divine dreams ; while they take
notice of the dreams of Joseph, Pharaoh, Nebuchad-
nezzar, and the angels on Jacob's ladder ; and find, in
Artemidorus and Achmetes, that ladders signify travels,
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 117

and the scales thereof preferment ; and that oxen lean

and fat naturally denote scarcity or plenty, and the
successes of agriculture.
Physiognomists will largely put in from very many
passages of Scripture. And when they find in Aris-
totle, quibus frons quadrangula commensurata, fortes,
referuntur ad /eories, cannot but take special notice of
that expression concerning the Gadites ; mighty men
of war, fit for battle, whose faces were as the faces of
lions.
Geometrical and architectonical artists look narrowly
upon the description of the ark, the fabric of the
temple, and the holy city in the Apocalypse.
But the botanical artist meets everywhere with
vegetables, and from the fig leaf in Genesis to the star
wormwood in the Apocalypse, are variously interspersed
expressions from plants, elegantly advantaging the
significancy of the text : whereof many being delivered
in a language proper unto Judaea and neighbour countries,
are imperfectly apprehended by the common reader,
and now doubtfully made out, even by the Jewish
expositor.
And even in those which are confessedly known, the
elegancy is often lost in the apprehension of the reader,
unacquainted with such vegetables, or but nakedly
 n8 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

knowing their natures : whereof holding a pertinent

apprehension, you cannot pass over such expressions
without some doubt or want of satisfaction in your
judgment. Hereof we shall only hint or discourse
some few which I could not but take notice of in the
reading of holy Scripture.
Many plants are mentioned in Scripture which are
not distinctly known in our countries, or under such
names in the original, as they are fain to be rendered
by analogy, or by the name of vegetables of good
affinity unto them, and so maintain the texual sense,
though in some variation from identity.
i. That plant which afforded a shade unto Jonah,1
mentioned by the name of kikaion, and still retained, at
least marginally, in some translations, to avoid obscurity
Jerome rendered hedera or ivy ; which notwithstanding
(except in its scandent nature) agreed not fully with
the other, that is, to grow up in a night, or be con-
sumed with a worm ; ivy being of no swift growth,
little subject unto worms, and a scarce plant about
Babylon.
2. That hyssop is taken for that plant which cleansed
the leper, being a well-scented and very abstersive
simple, may well be admitted ; so we be not too
1 Jonah iv. 6 — a gourd.
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 119

confident, that it is strictly the same with our common

hyssop : the hyssop of those parts differing from that
of ours ; as Bellonius hath observed in the hyssop
which grows in Judaea, and the hyssop of the wall
mentioned in the works of Solomon, no kind of our
hyssop ; and may tolerably be taken for some kind of
minor capillary, which best makes out the antithesis
with the cedar. Nor when we meet with libanotis, is
it to be conceived our common rosemary, which is
rather the first kind thereof amongst several others, used
by the ancients.
3. That it must be taken for hemlock, which is
twice so rendered in our translation,1 will hardly be
made out, otherwise than in the intended sense, and
implying some plant, wherein bitterness or a poisonous
quality is considerable.
4. What Tremellius rendereth spina, and the vulgar
translation pal\urus> and others make some kind of
rhamnus, is allowable in the sense ; and we contend
not about the species, since they are known thorns in
those countries, and in our fields or gardens among us :
and so common in Judsea, that men conclude the
thorny crown of our Saviour was made either 0
paliurus or rhamnus.
1 Hosea x. 4; Amos vi. z.
120 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

5. Whether the bush which burnt and consumed

not, were properly a rubus or bramble, was somewhat
doubtful from the original and some translations, had
not the Evangelist, and St. Paul expressed the same
by the Greek word, /?citos, which, from the descrip-
tion of Dioscorides, herbalists accept for rubus :
although the same word ySaros expresseth not only
the rubus or kinds of bramble, but other thorny bushes,
and the hip-brier is also named KuvotrySaTos, or the
dog-brier or bramble.
6. That myrlca is rendered heath,1 sounds in-
structively enough to our ears, who behold that plant
so common in barren plains among us : but you cannot
but take notice that erica, or our heath, is not the same
plant with myrica or tamarice, described by Theo-
phrastus and Dioscorides, and which Bellonius declareth
to grow so plentifully in the deserts of Judaea and
Arabia.
7. That the /3ot/3vs rr}<; KVKpov, botrus cypri,1 or
clusters of cypress, should have any reference to the
cypress tree, according to the original, copier, or clusters
of the noble vine of Cyprus, which might be planted
into Judaea, may seem to others allowable in some
latitude. But there seeming some noble odour to be
1 Cant. i. 14.
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 121

implied in this place, you may probably conceive that

the expression drives at the *t— pos of Dioscorides, some
oriental kind oiligustrum or alcharma, which Dioscorides
and Pliny mention under the name of Kiirpos and Cyprus,
and to grow about Egypt and Ascalon, producing a
sweet and odorate bush of flowers, and out of which
was made the famous oleum cyprinum.
But why it should be rendered camphor your judg-
ment cannot but doubt, who know that our camphor
was unknown unto the ancients, and no ingredient into
any composition of great antiquity : that learned men
long conceived it a bituminous and fossil body, and our
latest experience discovereth it to be the resinous
substance of a tree, in Borneo and China ; and that
the camphor that we use is a neat preparation of the
same.
8. When 'tis said in Isaiah xli. " I will plant in the
wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrde,
and the oil tree, I will set in the desert, the fir tree,
and the pine, and the box tree : " though some doubt
may be made of the shittah tree, yet all these trees
here mentioned being such as are ever green, you will
more emphatically apprehend the merciful meaning of
God in this mention of no fading, but always verdant
trees in dry and desert places.
122 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

9. " And they cut down a branch with one cluster

of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff,
and they brought pomegranates and figs." This
cluster of grapes brought upon a staff by the spies was
an incredible sight, in Philo Judasus, seemed notable in
the eyes of the Israelites, but more wonderful in our
own, who look only upon northern vines. But herein
you are like to consider, that the cluster was thus
carefully carried to represent it entire, without bruising
or breaking ; that this was not one bunch, but an
extraordinary cluster, made up of many depending
upon one gross stalk. And, however, might be
paralleled with the eastern clusters of Margiana and
Caramania, if we allow but half the expressions of
Pliny and Strabo, whereof one would lade a curry or
small cart ; and may be made out by the clusters of
the grapes of Rhodes presented unto Duke Radzivil,
each containing three parts of an ell in compass, and
the grapes as big as prunes.
10. Some things may be doubted in die species of
the holy ointment and perfume.1 With amber, musk,
and civet we meet not in the Scripture, nor any odours
from animals ; except we take the onycha of that per-
fume, for the covercle of a shell-fish, called unguis
1 Exod. xxx. 34, 35.
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 123

odoratus, or llatta byzantina, which Dioscorides affirm-

eth to be taken from a shell-fish of the Indian lakes,
which feedeth upon the aromatical plants, is gathered
when the lakes are dry. But whether that which we
now call blatta byzant'ma or unguis odoratus, be the
same with that odorate one of antiquity, great doubt
may be made ; since Dioscorides saith it smelled like
castoreum, and that which we now have is of an un-
grateful odour.
No little doubt may be also made of galbanum
prescribed in the same perfume, if we take it for
galbanum, which is of common use among us, approach-
ing the evil scent of assafcstlda ; and not rather for
galbanum of good odour as the adjoining words declare,
and the original chelbena will bear ; which implieth a
fat or resinous substance ; that which is commonly
known among us being properly a gummous body and
dissoluble also in water.
The holy ointment of stacte or pure myrrh, dis-
tilling from the plant without expression or firing, of
cinnamon, cassia, and calamus, containeth less question-
able species, if the cinnamon of the ancients were the
same with ours, or managed after the same manner.
For thereof Dioscorides made his noble unguent. And
cinnamon was so highly valued by princes, that
i24 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

Cleopatra carried it unto her sepulchre with her jewels ;

which was also kept in wooden boxes among the
rarities of kings ; and was of such a lasting nature,
that at his composing of treacle for the Emperor
Severus, Galen made use of some which had been laid
up by Adrianus.
ii. That the prodigal son desired to eat of husks
given unto swine, will hardly pass in your apprehension
for the husks of pease, beans, or such edulious pulses ;
as well understanding that the texual word Kepariov,
or ceration, properly intendeth the fruit of the siliqua
tree, so common in Syria, and fed upon by men and
beasts ; called also by some the fruit of the locust tree,
and pan'is sanct'i Johannis, as conceiving it to have been
part of the diet of the Baptist in the desert. The tree
and fruit is not only common in Syria and the eastern
parts, but also well known in Apuleia and the kingdom
of Naples ; growing along the Via Appia, from Fundi
unto Mola ; the hard cods or husks making a rattling
noise in windy weather, by beating against one another ;
called by the Italians, caroba or carobala, and by the
French, carouges. With the sweet pulp hereof some
conceive that the Indians preserve ginger, mirabolans,
and nutmegs. Of the same (as Pliny delivers) the
ancients made one kind of wine, strongly expressing
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 125

the juice thereof; and so they might after give the

expressed and less useful part of the cods and remaining
pulp unto their swine ; which, being no gustless or
unsatisfying offal, might be well desired by the prodigal
in his hunger.
12. No marvel it is that the Israelites, having lived
long in a well-watered country, and been acquainted
with the noble water of Nilus, should complain for
water in the dry and barren wilderness. More remark-
able it seems that they should extol and linger after
the cucumbers and leeks, onions and garlick of Egypt ;
wherein, notwithstanding, lies a pertinent expression of
the diet of that country in ancient times, even as high
as the building of the pyramids, when Herodotus
delivereth, that so many talents were spent in onions
and garlick, for the food of labourers and artificers ;
and is also answerable unto their present plentiful diet
in cucumbers, and the great varieties thereof, as
testified by Prosper Alpinus, who spent many years in
Egypt.
13. What fruit that was which our first parents
tasted in Paradise, from the disputes of learned men,
seems yet indeterminable. More clear it is that they
covered their nakedness or secret parts with fig leaves ;
which, when I read, I cannot but call to mind the
 126 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

several considerations which antiquity had of the fig

tree, in reference unto those parts, particularly how fig
leaves, by sundry authors, are described to have some
resemblance unto the genitals, and so were aptly formed
for such contection of those parts ; how also, in that
famous statua of Praxiteles, concerning Alexander and
Bucephalus, the secret parts are veiled with fig leaves.
1 4. That the good Samaritan, coming from Jericho,
used any of the Judean balsam upon the wounded
traveller, is not to be made out, and we are unwilling
to disparage his charitable surgery in pouring oil into
a green wound ; and, therefore when 'tis said he used
oil and wine, may rather conceive that he made an
oinelaum, or medicine of oil and wine beaten up and
mixed together, which was no improper medicine, and
is an art now lately studied by some so to incorporate
wine and oil, that they may lastingly hold together
which some pretend to have, and call it oleum
Samar'itanum or, Samaritan's oil.
15. When Daniel would not pollute himself with
the diet of the Babylonians, he probably declined
pagan commensation, or to eat of meats forbidden to
the Jews, though common at their tables, or so much
as to taste of their Gentile immolations, and sacrifices
abominable unto his palate.
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 127

But when 'tis said that he made choice of the diet

of pulse and water, whether he strictly confined unto a
leguminous food, according to the vulgar translation,
some doubt may be raised from the original word
zeragnim, which signifies seminalia, and is so set down
in the margin of Arias Montanus ; and the Greek
word spermata, generally expressing seeds, may signify
any edulious or cerealious grains beside ocnrpta or
leguminous seeds.
Yet, if he strictly made choice of a leguminous food,
and water, instead of his portion from the king's table,
he handsomely declined the diet which might have
been put upon him, and particularly that which was
called the potibasis of the king, which, as Athenseus
informeth, implied the bread of the king, made of
barley and wheat, and the wine of Cyprus, which he
drank in an oval cup. And, therefore, distinctly from
that he chose plain fare of water, and the gross diet of
pulse, and that, perhaps, not made into bread, but
parched and tempered with water.

1 7. Whether in the sermon of the mount, the lilies

of the field did point at the proper lilies, or whether
those flowers grew wild in the place where our Saviour
preached, some doubt may be made ; because xpivov,
iz8 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

the word in that place, is accounted of the same

signification with Xeipiov, and that in Homer is taken
for all manner of specious flowers ; so received by
Eustachius, Hesychius, and the scholiast upon Apol-
lonius, Ka^oAou to. av6r) Aapia Xeyerat. And npivov
is also received in the same latitude, not signifying
only lilies, but applied unto daffodils, hyacinths, irises,
and the flowers of colocynthis.
Under the like latitude of acception, are many
expressions in the Canticles to be received. And
when it is said " he feedeth among the lilies," therein
may be also implied other specious flowers, not ex-
cluding the proper lilies. But in that expression, "the
lilies drop forth myrrh," neither proper lilies nor
proper myrrh can be apprehended, the one not pro-
ceeding from the other, but may be received in a
metaphorical sense : and in some latitude may be made
out from the roscid and honey drops observable in
the flowers of martagon, and inverted flowered lilies,
and, 'tis like, is the standing sweet dew on the white
eyes of the crown imperial, now common among us.
And the proper lily may be intended in that ex-
pression of i Kings vii., that the brazen sea was of
the thickness of a hand breadth, and the brim like a
lily. For the figure of that flower being round at the
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 129

bottom, and somewhat repandous, or inverted at the

top, doth handsomely illustrate the comparison.
But that the lily of the valley, mentioned in the
Canticles, " I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of
the valley," is that vegetable which passeth under the
same name with us, that is, lilium convalfium, or the
May lily, you will more hardly believe, who know
with what insatisfaction the most learned botanists
reduce that plant unto any described by the ancients ;
that Anguillara will have it to be the ananthe of
Athenjeus, Cordus, the pothos of Theophrastus, and
Lobelius, that the Greeks had not described it ; who
find not six leaves in the flower, agreeably to all lilies,
but only six small divisions in the flower, who find it
also to have a single, and no bulbous root, nor leaves
shooting about the bottom, nor the stalk round, but
angular. And that the learned Bauhinus hath not
placed it in the classis of lilies, but nervifolious
plants.

21. It is said in the Song of Solomon, that " The

vines with the tender grape give a good smell." That
the flowers of the vine should be emphatically noted
to give a pleasant smell seems hard unto our northern
nostrils, which discover not such odours, and smell
K
130 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

them not in full vineyards ; whereas in hot regions,

and more spread and digested flowers, a sweet savour
may be allowed, denotable from several human ex-
pressions, and the practice of the ancients, in putting
the dried flowers of the vine into new wine to give it
a pure and flosculous race or spirit, which wine was
therefore called olvdvOtvov, allowing unto every cadus
two pounds of dried flowers.
And therefore, the vine flowering but in the spring,
it cannot but seem an impertinent objection of the
Jews, that the apostles were " full of new wine at
Pentecost," when it was not to be found. Wherefore
we may rather conceive that the word yXevnv in that
place implied not new wine or must, but some generous
strong and sweet wine, wherein more especially lay the
power of inebriation.
But if it be to be taken for some kind of must, it
might be some kind of aleiyXevKos, or long lasting
must, which might be had at any time of the year,
and which, as Pliny delivereth, they made by hindering
and keeping the must from fermentation or working,
and so it kept soft and sweet for no small time after.

30. You will readily discover how widely they are

mistaken, who accept the sycamore mentioned in several
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 131

parts of Scripture for the sycamore or tree of that

denomination with us ; which is properly but one kind
or difference of accr, and bears no fruit with any
resemblance unto a fig.
But you will rather, thereby, apprehend the true and
genuine sycamore or sycaminus, which is a stranger in
our parts. A tree (according to the description of
Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Galen), resembling a
mulberry tree in the leaf, but in the fruit a fig ; which
it produceth not in the twigs but in the trunk or greater
branches, answerable to the sycamore of Egypt, the
Egyptian fig or gianwz. of the Arabians, described by
Prosper Alpinus, with a leaf somewhat broader than a
mulberry, and in its fruit like a fig. Insomuch that
some have fancied it to have had its first production
from a fig tree grafted on a mulberry. It is a tree
common in Judaea, whereof thev made frequent use
in buildings ; and so understood, it explaineth that
expression in Isaiah 1 : " Sycamori exc'ui sunt, cedros
substituanus . The bricks are fallen down, but we will
build with hewn stones : the sycamores are cut down,
but we will change them into cedars."
It is a broad spreading tree, not only fit for walks,
groves, and shade, but also affording profit. And
1 Isaiah \x. 10.
1 32 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

therefore it is said that King David 1 appointed Baal-

hanan to be over his olive trees and sycamores, which
were in great plenty ; and it is accordingly delivered,
that " Solomon made cedars to be as the sycamore
trees that are in the vale for abundance." 2 That is, he
planted many, though they did not come to perfection
in his days.
And as it grew plentifully about the plains, so was
the fruit good for food ; and, as Bellonius and late
accounts deliver, very refreshing unto travellers in
those hot and dry countries : whereby the expression
of Amos 3 becomes more intelligible, when he said he
was an herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.
And the expression of David4 also becomes more
emphatical : " He destroyed their vines with hail, and
their sycamore trees with frost." That is, their sicmoth
in the original, a word in the sound not far from the
sycamore.
Thus, when it is said, " If ye had faith as a grain
of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree,
be thou plucked up by the roots, and be thou placed
in the sea, and it should obey you : " 5 it might be
1 I Chron. xxvii. 28. - 1 Kings x. rj.
3 Amos vii. 14. * Psalm lxxviii. 47.
5 Luke xvii. 6.
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 133

more significantly spoken of this sycamore ; this being

described to be arbor vasta, a large and well-rooted
tree, whose removal was more difficult than many
others. And so the instance in that text, is very
properly made in the sycamore tree, one of the largest
and less removable trees among them. A tree so
lasting and well-rooted, that the sycamore which
Zaccheus ascended is still shown in Judsea unto
travellers ; as also the hollow sycamore at Maturaea
in Egypt, where the blessed virgin is said to have re-
mained : which though it relisheth of the legend, yet
it plainly declareth what opinion they had of the lasting
condition of that tree, to countenance the tradition ;
for which they might not be without some experience,
since the learned describer of the pyramids observeth,
that the old Egyptians made coffins of this wood, which
he found yet fresh and undecayed among divers of
their mummies.
And thus, also, when Zaccheus climbed up into a
6ycamore above any other tree, this being a large and
fair one, it cannot be denied that he made choice of a
proper and advantageous tree to look down upon our
Saviour.

32. "For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree,

134 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

which is wild by nature, and wert grafted, contrary to

nature, into a good olive tree, how much more shall
these which be the natural branches, be grafted into
their own olive tree ? " In which place, how answer-
able to the doctrine of husbandry this expression of
St. Paul is, you will readily apprehend who understand
the rules of insition or grafting, and that way of
vegetable propagation ; wherein it is contrary to nature,
or natural rules which art observeth : viz. to make use
of scions more ignoble than the stock, or to graft wild
upon domestic and good plants, according as Theo-
phrastus hath anciently observed,1 and, making instance
in the olive, hath left this doctrine unto us : urbanum
sy/vestribus ut satis oleastris inserere. Nam si e contrario
sylvestrem in urbanos sevens, etsi differentia quadam erit,
tamen bona frugis arbor nunquam profecto reddetur :
which is also agreeable unto our present practice, who
graft pears on thorns, and apples upon crabstocks, not
using the contrary insition.2 And when it is said,
" how much more shall these, which are the natural
branches, be grafted into their own natural olive tree ? "
this is also agreeable unto the rule of the same author ;
ecru St ySeAnW kyK€VTpurjx6% 6/Wcov eis ofxoia, insitio

1 Dt Causis Plant., lib. i., cap. 7.

2 See "Observations on Grafting," post, p. 158.
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 135

melior est simitium in similibus : for the nearer con-

sanguinity there is between the scions and the stock,
the readier comprehension is made and the nobler
fructification. According also unto the later caution
of Laurenbergius ; l arbores domestic* insitioni destinaU,
semper anteponcnda sylvestribus. And though the suc-
cess be good, and may suffice upon stocks of the same
denomination ; yet, to be grafted upon their own and
mother stock, is the nearest insition : which way,
though less practised of old, is now much embraced,
and found a notable way for melioration of the fruit,
and much the rather, if the tree to be grafted on be a
good and generous plant, a good and fair olive, as the
apostle seems to imply by a peculiar word, scarce to be
found elsewhere.2
It must be also considered, that the oleaster^ or wild
olive, by cutting, transplanting, and the best managery
of art, can be made but to produce such olives as
Theophrastus saith were particularly named phauTia,
that is, but bad olives ; and that it was among prodigies
for the oleaster to become an olive tree.
And when insition and grafting, in the text, is applied
unto the olive tree, it hath an emphatical sense, very
1 De Htrticultura.
a KaWifKatov. — Rom. xi. 14.
136 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

agreeable unto that tree which is best propagated this

way ; not at all by surculation, as Theophrastus
observeth,1 nor well by seed, as hath been observed.
Omne semen simile genus perfictt, prater oleam, oleastrum
enim generat, hoc est sylvestrem oleam, et non oleam
veram.
" If, therefore, thou Roman and Gentile branch,
which wert cut from the wild olive, art now, by the
signal mercy of God, beyond the ordinary and commonly
expected way, grafted into the true olive, the church
of God ; if thou, which neither naturally nor by
human art canst be made to produce any good fruit,
and, next to a miracle, to be made a true olive, art now
by the benignity of God grafted into the proper olive ;
how much more shall the Jew, and natural branch, be
grafted into its genuine and mother tree, wherein pro-
pinquity of nature is like, so readily and prosperously,
to effect a coalition ? And this more especially by
the expressed way of insition or implantation, the olive
being not successfully propagable by seed, nor at all by
surculation."

34. " And therefore, Israel said, carry down the

man a present, a little balm, a little honey, and myrrh,
1 Geobortki lib. x
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 137

nuts, and almonds." 1 Now whether this, which Jacob

sent, were the proper balsam extolled by human writers,
you cannot but make some doubt, who find the Greek
translation to be prjcrcvr], that is, resina, and so may
have some suspicion that it might be some pure
distillation from the turpentine tree ; which grows
prosperously and plentifully in Judaea, and seems so
understood by the Arabic ; and was indeed esteemed
by Theophrastus and Dioscorides the chiefest of resinous
bodies, and the word resina emphatically used for it.
That the balsam plant hath grown and prospered in
Judaea we believe without dispute. For the same is
attested by Theophrastus, Pliny, Justinus, and many
more. From the commendation that Galen afFordeth
of the balsam of Syria, and the story of Cleopatra,
rat she obtained some plants of balsam from Herod
.he Great to transplant into Egypt. But whether it
was so anciently in Judaea as the time of Jacob ; nay,
whether this plant was here before the time of Solomon,
that great collector of vegetable rarities, some dMM
may be made from the account of Joseph us, that the
queen of Sheba, a part of Arabia, among presents unto
Solomon brought some plants of the balsam tree, as
one of the peculiar estimables of her country.
1 Psalm civ. 17.
138 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

Whether this ever had its natural growth, or were art

original native plant in Judaea, much more that it was
peculiar unto that country, a greater doubt may arise :
while we read in Pausanias, Strabo, and Diodorus,
that it grows also in Arabia, and find in Theophrastus,1
that it grew in two gardens about Jericho in Judaea.
And more especially while we seriously consider that
notable discourse between Abdella, Abdachim, and
Alpinus, concluding the natural and original place of
this singular plant to be in Arabia, about Mecha and
Medina, where it still plentifully groweth, and mountains
abound therein ; 2 from whence it hath been carefully
transplanted by the bashas of Grand Cairo, into the
garden of Matarea : where, when it dies, it is repaired
again from those parts of Arabia, from whence the
Grand Signior yearly receiveth a present of balsam
from the xerifF of Mecha, still called by the Arabians
balessan ; whence they believe arose the Greek, appella-
tion balsam. And since these balsam plants are not
now to be found in Judaea, and though purposely
cultivated, are often lost in Judaea, but everlastingly
live, and naturally renew in Arabia, they probably
concluded, that those of Judaea were foreign and
transplanted from these parts.
1 Lib. IX., cap. 6 2 Prosper Alpinus, de Balsamo.
 PLANTS IX SCRIPTURE 139

All which notwithstanding, since the same plant may

grow naturally and spontaneously in several countries,
and either from inward or outward causes be lost in
one region, while it continueth and subsisteth in another,
the balsam tree might possibly be a native of Judsea as
well as of Arabia ; which because de facto it cannot
be clearly made out, the ancient expressions of Scripture
become doubtful in this point. But since this plant
hath not for a long time grown in Judaea, and still
plentifully prospers in Arabia, that which now comes
in precious parcels to us, and still is called the balsam
of Judaea, many now surrender its name, and more
properly be called the balsam of Arabia.

3-. When 'tis said that Elias lay and slept under a
juniper tree, some may wonder how that tree, which
in our parts groweth but low and shrubby, should afford
him shade and covering. But others know that there
is a lesser and a larger kind of that vegetable ; that it
makes a tree in its proper soil and region. And may
6nd in Pliny that in the temple of Diana Saguntina, in
Spain, the rafters were made of juniper.
In that expression of David,1 " Sharp arrows of the
1 Psalm czxix. 7.
Ho PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

mighty, with coals of juniper." Though juniper be

left out in the last translation, yet may there be an
emphatical sense from that word ; since juniper abounds
with a piercing oil, and makes a smart fire. And the
rather, if that quality be half true, which Pliny affirmeth,
that the coals of juniper raked up will keep a glowing
fire for the space of a year. For so the expression
will emphatically imply, not only the " smart burning
but the lasting fire of their malice."
That passage of Job,1 wherein he complains that
poor and half-famished fellows despise him, is of
greater difficulty ; " For want and famine they were
solitary, they cut up mallows by the bushes, and
juniper roots for meat." Wherein we might at first
doubt the translation, not only from the Greek text,
but the assertion of Dioscorides, who affirmeth that
the roots of juniper are of a venomous quality. But
Scaliger hath disproved the same from the practice
of the African physicians, who use the decoction of
juniper roots against the venereal disease. The Chaldee
reads it genista, or some kind of broom, which will be
also unusual and hard diet, except thereby we under-
stand the orobanche, or broom rape, which groweth
from the roots of broom ; and which, according to
1 Job xxx. 3, 4,
 PLANTS IX SCRIPTURE 141
Dioscorides, men used to eat raw or boiled, in the
manner of asparagus.
And, therefore, this expression doth highly declare
the misery, poverty, and extremity, of the persons
who were now mockers of him ; they being so con-
temptible and necessitous, that they were fain to be
content, not with a mean diet, but such as was no diet
at all, the roots of trees, the roots of juniper, which
none would make use of for food, but in the lowest
necessity, and some degree of famishing.

41. While you read in Theophrastus or modern

herbalists, a strict division of plants, into arbor, frutex,
suffrutex et herba, you cannot but take notice of the
Scriptural division at the creation, into tree and herb ;
and this may seem too narrow to comprehend the
class of vegetables ; which, notwithstanding, may be
sufficient, and a plain and intelligible division thereof.
And therefore, in this difficulty concerning the division
of plants, the learned botanist, Csesalpinus, thus con-
cludeth, clarius agemus si altera divisione neglect a, duo
tantum plantarum genera substituamus, arborem scilicet, et
herbam, conjungentes cum arboribus frueticcs , et cum herba
suffrutices ; frutices being the lesser trees, and suffrutices
the larger, harder, and more solid herbs.
1 42 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

And this division into herb and tree may also suffice,
if we take in that natural ground of the division of
perfect plants, and such as grow from seeds. For
plants, in their first production, do send forth two
leaves adjoining to the seed ; and then afterwards, do
either produce two other leaves, and so successively
before any stalk ; and such go under the name of 7roa,
fioTavrj or herb ; or else, after the two first leaves
succeeded to the seed leaves, they send forth a stalk
or rudiment of a stalk, before any other leaves, and
such fall under the classes of SeVSpov or tree. So
that, in this natural division, there are but two grand
differences, that is, tree and herb. The frutex and
suffrutex have the way of production from the seed,
and in other respects the sujfrutices or cremia, have a
middle and participating nature, and referable unto
herbs.

42. "I have seen the ungodly in great power, and

flourishing like a green bay tree." Both Scripture and
human writers draw frequent illustrations from plants.
Scribonius Largus illustrates the old cymbals from the
cotyledon palustris or umbilicus veneris. Who would ex-
pect to find Aaron's mitre in any plant ? Yet Josephus
hath taken some pains to make out the same in the
seminal knop of hyoscyamus or henbane. The Scripture
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 1+3

compares the figure of manna unto the seed of coriander.

In Jeremy J we find the expression, " straight as a
palm tree." And here the wicked in their flourishing
state are likened unto a bay tree. Which, sufficiently
answering the sense of the text, we are unwilling to
exclude that noble plant from the honour of having
its name in Scripture. Yet we cannot but observe,
that the septuagint renders it cedars, and the vulgar

accordingly, v'tdi imp'ium superexaltatumy et elevatum

sicut cedros Libani ; and the translation of Tremellius
mentions neither bay nor cedar; sese explicantem tanquam
arbor mdigena virens ; which seems to have been
followed by the last low Dutch translation. A private
translation renders it like a green self-growing laurel.
The high Dutch of Luther's Bible retains the word
laurel ; and so doth the old Saxon and Iceland trans-
lation ;so also the French, Spanish, and Italian of
Diodati : yet his notes acknowledge that some think
it rather a cedar, and others any large tree in a
prospering and natural soil.
But however these translations differ, the sense is
allowable and obvious unto apprehension : when no
particular plant is named, any proper to the sense may
be supposed ; where either cedar or laurel is mentioned,
1 Jer. x 5.
H4 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

if the preceding words (exalted and elevated) be used,

they are more applicable unto the cedar ; where the
word (flourishing) is used, it is more agreeable unto
the laurel, which, in its prosperity, abounds with
pleasant flowers, whereas those of the cedar are very
little, and scarce perceptible, answerable to the fir,
pine, and other coniferous trees.

46. Though so many plants have their express

names in Scripture, yet others are implied in some
texts which are not explicitly mentioned. In the feast
of tabernacles or booths, the law was this, " thou shah
take unto thee boughs of goodly trees, branches of the
palm, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of
the brook." Now though the text descend eth not
unto . particulars of the goodly trees and thick trees ;
yet Maimonides will tell us that for a goodly tree they
made use of the citron tree, which is fair and goodly
to the eye, and well prospering in that country : and
that for the thick trees they used the myrtle, which
was no rare or infrequent plant among them. And
though it groweth but low in our gardens, was not a
little tree in those parts ; in which plant also the leaves
grew thick, and almost covered the stalk. And Curtius
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 145

Symphorianus x in his description of the exotic myrtle,

makes it folio dens'issimo senis in ordinem versibus. The
paschal lamb was to be eaten with bitterness or bitter
herbs, not particularly set down in Scripture : but the
Jewish writers declare, that they made use of succory,
and wild lettuce, which herbs while some conceive
they could not get down, as being very bitter, rough,
and prickly, they may consider that the time of the
passover was in the spring, when these herbs are young
and tender, and consequently less unpleasant : besides,
according to the Jewish custom, these herbs were dipped
in the charoseth, or sauce made of raisins stamped with
vinegar, and were also eaten with bread ; and they had
four cups of wine allowed unto them ; and it was
sufficient to take but a pittance of herbs, or the quantity
of an olive.

48. The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man

which sowed good seed in his field, but while men
slept, his enemy came and sowed " tares," or as the
Greek, zizania, "among the wheat."
Now, how to render zizania, and to what species of
plants to confine it, there is no slender doubt ; for the
1 D: Hortu.
146 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

word is not mentioned in other parts of Scripture, nor

in any ancient Greek writer : it is not to be found in
Aristotle, Theophrastus, or Dioscorides. Some Greek
and Latin fathers have made use of the same, as also
Suidas and Phavorinus ; but probably they have all
derived it from this text.
And, therefore, this obscurity might easily occasion
such variety in translations and expositions. For some
retain the word zizania, as the vulgar, that of Beza,
of Junius, and also the Italian and the Spanish. The
low Dutch renders it oncruidt, the German oncraut, or
herba ma/a, the French yvroye or folium, and the
English tares.
Besides, this being conceived to be a Syriac word,
it may still add unto the uncertainty of the sense.
For though this gospel were first written in Hebrew
or Syriac, yet it is not unquestionable whether the true
original be any where extant. And that Syriac copy
which we now have, is conceived to be of far later time
than St. Matthew.
Expositors and annotators are also various. Hugo
Grotius hath passed the word zizania without a note.
Diodati, retaining the word zizania, conceives that it
was some peculiar herb growing among the corn of
those countries, and not known in our fields. But
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 1+7

Emanuel de Sa interprets it plantas semini noxias, and

so accordingly some others.
Buxtorfius, in his Rabbinical Lexicon, gives divers
interpretations, sometimes for degenerated corn, some-
times for the black seeds in wheat, but withal concludes,
an hac sit eadem vox aut species cum zizanid apud
evangelistam, quxrant alii. But lexicons and dictionaries
by zizania do almost generally understand folium, which
we call darnel, and commonly confine the signification
to that plant- Notwithstanding, since lolium had a
known and received name in Greek, some may be apt
to doubt why, if that plant were particularly intended,
the proper Greek word was not used in the text.
For Theophrastus l named lolium cupa, and hath often
mentioned that plant ; and in one place saith, that corn
doth sometimes loliescere or degenerate into darnel.
Dioscorides, who travelled over Judaea, gives it the
same name, which is also to be found in Galen, iEtius,
and jEgineta ; and Pliny hath sometimes Latinized
that word into <era.
Besides, lolium or darnel shows itself in the winter,
growing up with the wheat ; and Theophrastu*
observed, that it was no vernal plant, but came up
in the winter ; which will not well answer the ex-
1 Hut. Plant., lib. viii.
1 48 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

pression of the text, " And when the blade came up,
and brought forth fruit," or gave evidence of its fruit,
the zizania appeared. And if the husbandry of the
ancients were agreeable unto ours, they would not have
been so earnest to weed away the darnel ; for our
husbandmen do not commonly weed it in the field, but
separate the seed after thrashing. And, therefore,
Galen delivereth, that in an unseasonable year, and
great scarcity of corn, when they neglected to separate
the darnel, the bread proved generally unwholesome,
and had evil effects on the head.
Our old and later translators render zizania tares,
which name our English botanists give unto aracus,
cracca, -vicia sylvestris, calling them tares and strangling
tares. And our husbandmen by tares understand some
sorts of wild fitches, which grow amongst corn, and
clasp unto it, according to the Latin etymology, vicia
a •vinciendo. Now in this uncertainty of the original,
tares, as well as some others, may make out the sense,
and be also more agreeable unto the circumstances of
the parable. For they come up and appear what they
are, when the blade of the corn is come up, and also
the stalk and fruit discoverable. They have likewise
little spreading roots, which may entangle or rob the
good roots, and they have also tendrils and claspers,
 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 149

which lay hold of what grows near them, and so can

hardly be weeded without endangering the neighbouring
corn.
However, if by zixania we understand herbas segeti

noxiasy or vit'ta segetum, as some expositors have done,

and take the word in a more general sense, compre-
hending several weeds and vegetables offensive unto
corn, according as the Greek word in the plural
number may imply, and as the learned Laurenbergius 1
hath expressed, ruruare, quod apud nostraies iveden
dicitury zizanias inu tiles est tvellere. If, I say, it be
thus taken, we shall not need to be definite, or confine
unto one particular plant, from a word which may
comprehend divers. And this may also prove a safer
sense, in such obscurity of the original.
And, therefore, since in this parable the sower of
the zizania is the devil, and the zizania wicked persons ;
if any from this larger accepiion will take in thisdes,
darnel, cockle, wild straggling fitches, bindweed, triiu/us,
restharrow, and other vitia segetum; he may, both from
the natural and symbolical qualities of those vegetables,
have plenty of matter to illustrate the variety of his
mischiefs, and of the wicked of this world.

49. When 'tis said in Job, " Let thisdes grow up

1 Di Horti Cutiura.
ISO PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE

instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley," the

words are intelligible, the sense allowable and significant
to this purpose : but whether the word cockle doth
stricdy conform unto the original, some doubt may be
made from the different translations of it ; for the vulgar
renders it spina, Tremellius vitia frugum, and the
Geneva yvroye, or darnel. Besides, whether cockle
were common in the ancient agriculture of those parts,
or what word they used for it, is of great uncertainty.
For the elder botanical writers have made no mention
thereof, and the moderns have given it the name of
bseudomelanthium nigellastrum, lychnoldes segetum, names
not known unto antiquity. And, therefore, our trans-
lation hath warily set down "noisome weeds" in the
margin.
 OF GARLANDS AND CORONARY OR
GARLAND PLANTS

Sir,1 — The use of flowery crowns and garlands is of

no slender antiquity, and higher than I conceive you
apprehend it. For, besides the old Greeks and
Romans, the Egyptians made use hereof ; who, besides
the bravery of their garlands, had little birds upon
them to peck their heads and brows, and so to keep
them [fromj sleeping at their festival compotations.
This practice also extended as far as India : for at
the feast of the Indian king, it is peculiarly observed
by Philostratus, that their custom was to wear garlands,
and come crowned with them unto their feast.
The crowns and garlands of the ancients were either
gestatory, such as they wore about their heads or necks ;
portatory, such as they carried at solemn festivals ;
pensile or suspensory, such as they hanged about the
posts of their houses in honour of their gods, as Jupiter
Thyraeus or Limeneus ; or else they were depository,
such as they laid upon the graves and monuments of
1 This letter was written to John Evelyn (see Introduction)
151
152 OF GARLANDS

the dead. And these were made up after all ways of

art, compactile, sutile, plectile ; for which work there
were o-€</>avo7rAo/coi, or expert persons to contrive them
after the best grace and propriety.
Though we yield not unto them in the beauty of
flowery garlands, yet some of those of antiquity were
larger than any we lately met with ; for we find in
Athenseus, that a myrtle crown, of one and twenty
feet in compass, was solemnly carried about at the
Hellotian feast in Corinth, together with the bones of
Europa.
And garlands were surely of frequent use among
them ; for we read in Galen,1 that when Hippocrates
cured the great plague of Athens by fires kindled in
and about the city : the fuel thereof consisted much
of their garlands. And they must needs be very
frequent and of common use, the ends thereof being
many. For they were convivial, festival, sacrificial,
nuptial, honorary, funebrial. We who propose unto
ourselves the pleasures of two senses, and only single
out such as are of beauty and good odour, cannot
strictly confine ourselves unto imitation of them.
For, in their convivial garlands, they had respect
1 De Therlaca ad Pisonem.
 OF GARLANDS 153

■unto plants preventing drunkenness, or discussing the

exhalations from wine ; wherein, beside roses, taking
in ivy, vervain, melilote, Sec, they made use of divers
of small beauty or good odour. The solemn festival
garlands were made properly unto their gods, and
accordingly contrived from plants sacred unto such
deities ; and their sacrificial ones were selected under
such considerations. Their honorary crowns triumphal,
ovary, civical, obsidional, had little of flowers in them :
and their funebrial garlands had little of beauty in them
besides roses, while they made them of myrtle, rose-
mary, apium, &c, under symbolical intimations ; but
our florid and purely ornamental garlands, delightful
unto sight and smell, nor framed according to any
mystical and symbolical considerations, are of more
free election, and so may be made to excel those of
the ancients : we having China, India, and a new world
to supply us, beside the great distinction of flowers
unknown unto antiquity, and the varieties thereof arising
from art and nature.
But, beside vernal, aestival and autumnal, made of
flowers, the ancients had also the hyemal garlands ;
contenting themselves at first with such as were made
of horn dyed into several colours, and shaped into the
154 OF GARLANDS
figure of flowers, and also of as coronarium or cllncquantr
or brass thinly wrought out into leaves commonly
known among us. But the curiosity of some emperors
for such intents had roses brought from Egypt until
they had found the art to produce late roses in Rome,
and to make them grow in winter, as is delivered in
that handsome epigram of Martial —
At tu Romanae jussus jam cedere brumae
Mitte tuas messes, accipe, Nile, rosas.

Some American nations, who do much excel in

garlands, content not themselves only with flowers, but
make elegant crowns of feathers, whereof they have
some of greater radiancy and lustre than their flowers :
and since there is an art to set into shapes, and curiously
to work in choicest feathers, there could nothing answer
the crowns made of the choicest feathers of some
tomineios and sun birds.
The catalogue of coronary plants is not large in
Theophrastus, Pliny, Pollux, or Athenaeus : but we
may find a good enlargement in the accounts of modern
botanists ; and additions may still be made by successive
acquists of fair and specious plants, not yet translated
from foreign regions, or little known unto our gardens ;
he that would be complete may take notice of these
following : —
 OF GARLANDS 15}

Flos Tigridis.
Flos Lyncis.
Pinea Ind'tca Recchi, Talama Ouiedi.
Herba Paradisea.
Volubilis Mexicanus.
Narcissus Indicus Serpent arius.
Helichrysum Mexicanum.
Xicama.

Aquilegia
Aristochaa nova Hispania CacoxochitR Recch't.
Mexicana.
Camaratinga sive Caragunta quarta Pisonis.
Maracuia Granadilla.
Cambay sive Myrtus Americana.
Flos Auricula [Flor de la Oreia).
Floripendio nova Hispania.
Rosa Indica.
Z ilium Indicum.
Fula Magori Garcia.
Champe Garcia Champacca Bontii.
Daullontas frutex odoratus seu Chamamelum arbor-
escens Bontii.
Beidelsar Alpini.
Sambuc.
Amber boi Turcarum.
Nuphar JEgyptium.
156 OF GARLANDS

Lilionarcissus Indicus.
Bamma JEgyptiacum.
Hiucca Canadensis horti Farnesiani.
Bupthalmum nova Hispania Alepocapath.
Valeriana seu Chrysanthemum Americanum Acocotlis.
Flos Corvinus Coronarius Americanus.
Capolin Cerasus dulcis Indicus Floribus racemosis.
Asphodelus Americanus.
Syringa Lute a Americana.
Bulbus unifolius.
Moly latifolium Flore luteo.
Conyza Americana purpurea.
Salvia Cretica pomifera Bellonii.
Lausus Serrata Odora.
Ornithogalus Promontorii Bona Spei.
Fritillaria crassa Soldanica Promontorii Bona

Spei.
Sigillum Solomonis lndicum.
Tulipa Promontorii Bona Spei.
Iris Uvaria.
Nopolxock sedum elegans nova Hispania.
More might be added unto this list ; 1 and I have
only taken the pains to give you a short specimen of
1 " Which Sir Thomas sent me a Catalogue of from
Norwich." — Evelyn's MS. note.
 OF GARLANDS 157

those, many more which you may find in respective

authors, and which time and future industry may make
no great strangers in England. The inhabitants of nova
Hispania, and a great part of America, Mahometans^
Indians, Chinese, are eminent promoters of these
coronary and specious plants ; and the annual tribute
of the king of Bisnaguer in India, arising out of odours,
and flowers, amounts unto many thousands of crowns.
Thus, in brief, of this matter. I am, &c.
 OBSERVATIONS ON GRAFTING1
In the doctrine of all insitions, those are esteemed
most successful which are practised under these rules :—
That there be some consent or similitude of parts
and nature between the plants conjoined.
That insition be made between trees not of very
different barks ; nor very differing fruits or forms of
fructification ; nor of widely different ages.
That the scions or buds be taken from the south or
east part of the tree.
That a rectitude and due position be observed; not
to insert the south part of the scions unto the northern
side of the stock, but according to the position of the
scions upon his first matrix.
Now, though these rules be considerable in the usual
and practised course of insitions, yet were it but reason-
able for searching spirits to urge the operations of
nature by conjoining plants of very different natures in
parts, barks, lateness, and precocities, nor to rest in the
experiments of hortensial plants in whom we chiefly
1 Probably addressed to Evelyn.
158
 ON GRAFTING 159
intend the exaltation or variety of their fruit and
flowers, but in all sorts of shrubs and trees applicable
unto physic or mechanical uses, whereby we might
alter their tempers, moderate or promote their virtues,
exchange their softness, hardness, and colour, and so
render them considerable beyond their known and trite
employments.
To which intent curiosity may take some rule or
hint from these or the like following, according to the
various ways of propagation : —
Colutea upon anagris — arbor judae upon anagris —
cassia poetica upon cytisus — cytisus upon periclymenum
rectum — woodbine upon jasmine — cystus upon rosemary
— rosemary upon ivy — sage or rosemary upon cystus —
myrtle upon gall or rhus myrtifolia — whortle-berry
upon gall, heath, or myrtle — coccygeia upon alaternus
— mezereon upon an almond — gooseberry and currants
upon mezereon, barberry, or blackthorn — barberry upon
a currant tree — bramble upon gooseberry or raspberry —
yellow rose upon sweetbrier — phyllerea upon broom —
broom upon furze — anonis lutea upon furze — holly upon
box — bay upon holly — holly upon pyracantha — a fig
upon chesnut — a fig upon mulberry — peach upon
mulberry — mulberry upon buckthorn — walnut upon
chesnut — savin upon juniper — vine upon oleaster, rose-
160 ON GRAFTING

mary, ivy — an arbutus upon a fig— a peach upon a fig—

white poplar upon black, poplar — asp upon white poplar
— wych elm upon common elm — hazel upon elm —
sycamore upon wych elm — cinnamon rose upon hip-
berry — a whitethorn upon a blackthorn — hipberry upon
a sloe, or skeye, or bullace — apricot upon a mulberry —
arbutus upon a mulberry — cherry upon a peach — oak
upon a chesnut — katherine peach upon a quince — a
warden upon a quince — a chesnut upon a beech — a
beech upon a chesnut — an hornbeam upon a beech —
a maple upon an hornbeam — a sycamore upon a maple —
a medlar upon a service tree — a sumack upon a quince
or medlar — an hawthorn upon a service tree — a quicken
tree upon an ash — an ash upon an asp — an oak upon
an ilex — a poplar upon an elm — a black cherry tree
upon a tilea or lime tree — tilea upon beech — alder upon
birch or poplar — a filbert upon an almond — an almond
upon a willow — a nux vesicaria upon an almond or
pistachio — a cerasus avium upon a nux vesicaria — a
cornelian upon a cherry tree — a cherry tree upon a
cornelian — an hazel upon a willow or sallow — a lilac
upon a sage tree — a syringa upon lilac or tree-mallow —
a rose elder upon syringa — a water elder upon rose
elder — buckthorn upon elder — frangula upon buckthorn
— hirga sanguinea upon privet — phyllerea upon vitex
 ON GRAFTING 161

vitex upon euonymus — euonymus upon viburnum —

ruscus upon pyracantha — paleurus upon hawthorn —
tarnarisk upon birch — erica upon tamarisk — polemonium
upon genista hispanica — genista hispanica upon colutea.
Nor are we to rest in the frustrated success of some
single experiments, but to proceed in attempts in the
most unlikely unto iterated and certain conclusions,
and to pursue the way of ablactation or inarching.
Whereby we might determine whether, according to
the ancients, no fir, pine, or picea, would admit of any
incision upon them ; whether yew will hold society
with none ; whether walnut, mulberry, and cornel
cannot be propagated by insition, or the fig and quince
admit almost of any, with many others of doubtful
truths in the propagations.
And while we seek for varieties in stocks and scions,
we are not to admit the ready practice of the scion
upon its own tree. Whereby, having a sufficient
number of good plants, we may improve their fruits
without translative conjunction, that is, by insition of
the scion upon his own mother, whereby an handsome
variety or melioration seldom faileth — we might be
still advanced by iterated insitions in proper boughs
and positions. Insition is also made not only with
scions and buds, but seeds, by inserting them in cabbage
M
i6z ON GRAFTING

stalks, turnips, onions, &c, and also in ligneous

plants.
Within a mile of this city of Norwich, an oak
groweth upon the head of a pollard willow, taller than
the stock, and about half a foot in diameter, probably
by some acorn falling or fastening upon it. I could
show you a branch of the same willow which shoots
forth near the stock which beareth both willow and
oak twigs and leaves upon it. In a meadow I use
in Norwich, beset with willows and sallows, I have
observed these plants to grow upon their heads ;
bylders,1 currants, gooseberries, cynocrambe, or dog's
mercury, barberries, bittersweet, elder, hawthorn.
1 Bilberry.
THE GARDEN
THE MOWER, AGAINST GARDENS

BY
ANDREW MARVELL
(1620-1678)
 THE GARDEN

How vainly men themselves amaze,

To win the palm, the oak, or bayes ;
And their uncessant labours see
Crown'd from some single herb or tree,__
Whose short and narrow-verged shade
Does prudently their toyles upbraid ;
While all the flow'rs and trees do close,
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,

And Innocence, thy sister dear !
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busie companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen

So am'rous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name :
1 66 ANDREW MARVELL

Little, alas ! they know or heed,

How far these beauties her's exceed !
Fair trees ! wheres'ere your barkes I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passions' heat,

Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race ;
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow ;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wond'rous life is this I lead !

Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectaren and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnar'd with flow'rs, I fall on grass.
I
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
 ANDREW MARVELL 167

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates — transcending these —
Far other worlds and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,

Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the bodie's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There, like a bird it sits, and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings ;
And, till prepar'd for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,

While man there walk'd without a mate
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet !
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises 'twere in one,
To live in paradise alone.
1 68 ANDREW MARVELL

How well the skilful gardner drew

Of flow'rs and herbs this dial new ;
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiack run,
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we !
How could such sweet and wholsome hours
Be reckon'd but with herbs and flow'rs !
 THE MOWER AGAINST GARDENS

Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,

Did after him the world seduce,
And from the fields the flow'rs and plants allure,
Where Nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclos'd within the gardens square
A dead and standing pool of air ;
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
Which stupifi'd them while it fed.
The pink grew then as double as his mind ;
The nutriment did change the kind
With strange perfumes he did the roses taint ;
And flow'rs themselves were taught to paint. -
The tulip, white, did for complexion seek,
And learn'd to interline its cheek ;
Its onion-root they then so high did hold,
That one was for a meadow sold :
Another world was search 'd through oceans new,
To find the marvel of Peru ;
And yet these rarities might be allow'd
To man, that sov'raign thing
169 and proud ;
Had he not dealt between the bark and tree,
Forbidden mixtures there to see.
170 ANDREW MARVELL

No plant now knew the stock from which it came ;

He grafts upon the wild the tame :
That the uncertain and adult'rate fruit
Might put the palate in dispute.
His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,
Lest any tyrant him outdoe ;
And in the cherry he does Nature vex,
To procreate without a sex.
'Tis all enforc'd, the fountain and the grot;
While the sweet fields do lye forgot,
Where willing Nature does to all dispence
A wild and fragrant innocence,
And fauns and fairyes do the meadows till
More by their presence then their skill.
Their statues, polish'd by some ancient hand,
May to adorn the gardens stand;
But, howso'ere the figures do excel,
The Gods themselves with us do dwell.
GARDEN LETTERS
PLAN OF A ROYAL GARDEN
GARDEN CUTTINGS FROM DIARY

BY

JOHN EVELYN
(1620-1706)
 John Evelyn, Esq. to Dr. Browne.
Co. Garden, Lond. 28 Jan. [1657-8J.
Honoured Sir,
By the mediation of that noble person, Mr.
Paston, and an extraordinary humanity of your owne,
I find I haue made acquisition of such a subsidiary, as
nothing but his greate favour to me, and your com-
municable nature could haue procur'd me. It is now,
therefore, that I dare promise myselfe successe in my
attempt ; and it is certaine that I will very justly owne
your favours with all due acknowledgements, as the
most obliging of all my correspondents. I perceive
you haue seene the proplasma and delineation of my
designe l which, to avoyde the infinite copying for
1 A projected work bearing the title, Elysium Brittanniatm,
the plan of which is given in Upcott's Miscellaneous Writing'
of J. Evelyn, Esq. This work was intended to comprise
forty distinct subjects, or chapters, disposed in three books.
One of the chapters was " Of ike coronary garden, \Sfc." to
which Sir Thomas Browne's tract, ** Of garlands, and coronary
or garland plants," was intended as a contribution. The
work, however, was never completed : though parts of it
remain among the MSS. at 1Wotton. 73 One chapter only,
"Of Sallets," was published in 1699, under the title,
" A:etaria ; a Discourse of Sallets." (See post, p. 193.)
 174 JOHN EVELYN

some of my curious friends, 1 was constrain'd to print ;

but it cannot be imagined that I should haue travell'd
over so large a province (though but a garden) as yet,
who set out not many moneths since, and can make it
but my diversions at best, who haue so many other
impediments besieging me, publique and personall,
whereofF the long sicknesse of my unicus, my only
sonn, now five moneths afflicted with a double quartan,
and but five yeares old, is not one of the least ; so
that there is not danger your additionalls and favours
to your servant should be prevented by the perfection
of my worke, or if it were, that I should be so in-
jurious to my owne fame or your civility, as not to
beginn all anew, that I might take in such auxiliaries as
you send me, and which I must esteeme as my best
and most efFectuall forces. Sir, I returne you a thousand
acknowledgements for the papers which you transmitted
me, and I will render you this account of my present
vndertaking. The truth is, that which imported me
to discourse on this subject after this sorte, was the
many defects which I encounter'd in bookes and in
gardens, wherein neither words nor cost had bin want-
ing, but judgement very much ; and though I cannot
boast of my science in this kind, as both vnbecoming
my yeares and my small experience, yet I esteem' d it
 GARDEN LETTERS 17 j

pardonable at least, if in doing my endeauour to rectifie

some mistakes, and advancing so vsefull and innocent a
divertisement, I made some essay, and cast in my
symbole with the rest. To this designe, if forraine
observation may conduce, I might likewise hope to
refine upon some particulars, especially concerning the
ornaments of gardens, which I shall endeavor so to
handle, as that they may become usefull and practic-
able, as well as magnificent, and that persons of all
conditions and faculties, which delight in gardens, may
therein encounter something for their owne advan-
tage. The modell, which I perceive you haue seene,
will aboundantly testifie my abhorrency of those painted
and formal projections of our cockney gardens and
plotts, which appeare like gardens of past-board and
march-payne, and smell more of paynt then of flowers
and verdure : our drift is a noble, princely, and uni-
versal Elysium, capable of all the amcenities that can
naturally be introduced into gardens of pleasure, and
such as may stand in competition with all the august
designes and stories of this nature, either of antient or
moderne tymes ; yet so as to become vsefull and
significant to the least pretences and faculties. We
will endeauour to shew how the aire and genious of
gardens operat vpon humane spirits towards virtue and
176 JOHN EVELYN

sanctitie, I meane in a remote, preparatory and instru-

mental! working. How caues, grotts, mounts, and
irregular ornaments of gardens do contribute to con-
templatiue and philosophicall enthusiasme ; how elysium,
antrum, nemus, paradysus, hortus, lucus, &c, signifie

all of them rem sacram et div'mam ; for these expedi-

ents do influence the soule and spirits of man, and
prepare them for converse with good angells ; besides
which, they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures,
phylosophy naturall and longevitie : and I would have
not onely the elogies and erhgie of the antient and famous
garden heroes, but a society of the paradisi cu/tores,
persons of antient simplicity, Paradisean and Hortulan
saints, to be a society of learned and ingenuous men,
such as Dr. Browne, by whome we might hope to
redeeme the tyme that has bin lost, in pursuing Vulgar
Errours, and still propagating them, as so many bold
men do yet presume to do. Were it to be hoped,
inter hos armorum strepitus, and in so generall a catalysis
of integrity, interruption of peace and propriety, the
hortulane pleasure, these innocent, pure, and vsefull
diversions might enjoy the least encouragement, whilst
brutish and ambitious persons seeke themselues in the
ruines of our miserable yet dearest country, quis talia
fando — ? — But, sir, I will not importune you with
 GARDEN LETTERS 177

these matters, nor shall they be able to make me to

desist from my designe, so long as you reanimate
my languishings, and pardon my imperfections. I
greately thanke you for your discourses, and the
acoustic diagramme, &c. I shall be a faithfull
reporter of your favours to me. In my philosophico-
medicall garden you can impart to me extraordinary
assistances as likewise in my coronary chapter, and
that of transmutations, c. 1. lib. 3. Norwich is a
place, I understand, which is very much addicted to
the flowry part ; and what indeede may I not
promise myselfe from your ingenuity, science, and
candor ? And now to shew you how farr I am
aduanced in my worke, though I haue drawne it in
loose sheetes, almost euery chapter rudely, yet 1 cannot
say to haue finished any thing tollerably farther than
chapter xi. lib. 2, and those which are so completed
are yet so written that I can at pleasure inserte what-
soeuer shall come to hand to obelize, correct, improve
and adorne it. That chapt. of the history of gardens
being the 7th of the last booke, is in a manner finished
by itselfe, and, if it be not ouer tedious, I think it will
extreamely gratifie the reader : for I do comprehend
them as vniversally as the chapter will beare it, and yet
am as particular in the descriptions as is possible,
N
178 JOHN EVELYN
because I not onely pretend them for pompous and
ostentatiue examples, but would render them usefull to
our trauellers which shall goe abroad, and where I
haue obserued so many particularities as, happly, others
descend not to. If you permitt me to transcribe you
an imperfect summ of the heads, it is to let you see
how farr we correspond (as by your excellent papers I
collect) and to engage your assistance in suppliing my
omissions ; you will pardon the defects in the syn-
chronismes, because they are not yet exactly marshalled,
and of my desultory scribbling.

CHAP, vii., lib. 3.

Paradise, Elysian fields, Hesperides, Horti Adonidis,
Alcinoi, Semyramis, Salomon's. The pensile gardens
in Babylon, of Nabucodonosor, of Cyrus, the gardens
of Panchaia, the Sabean in Arabia Felix. The
Egyptian gardens out of Athenjeus, the Villa Laura
neere Alexandria, the gardens of Adominus, the garden
at Samos, Democritus's garden, Epicurus's at Athens,
hortorum ille magister, as Pliny calls him. That of
Nysa described by Diodorus Siculus ; Masinissa's,
Lysander's, the garden of Laertes, father of Ulysses,
ex Homero. Theophrastus's, Mithridates' gardens ;
Alexandra's garden at Sydon, Hieron's Nautilus
 GARDEN LETTERS 179

gardens out of Athenasus ; the Indian king's garden

out of jElian ; and many others, which are in my
scattered adversaria, not yet inserted into this chapter.
Amongst the antient Romans. — Numa's garden,
Tarquin's, Scipio Airicanus's, Antoninus Pius's, Dio-
clesian's, Maecenas's, Martial's gardens ; the Tarentine
garden, Cicero's garden at Tusculum, Formia, Cuma ;
the Laurentine garden of Pliny junior, Cato, at Sabinus,
jElius Spartianus's garden, the elder Gordian's, Horti
Cassipedis, Drusi, Dolabella's garden, Galienus's,
Seneca's, Nero's, the Horti Lamiani, Agrippina's, the
Esquiline, Pompey's, Luculla's most costly gardens, &c.
More moderne and at present. — Clement the 8th 's
garden ; the Medicean, Mathseo's garden, Cardinal
Pio's ; Farnesian, Lodovisian, Burghesean, Aldo-
brandino's, Barberini's, the Belvedere, Montalta's,
Bossius's, Justiniane's, the Quirinal gardens, Cornelius's,
Mazarini's, &c.
In other parts of Italy. — Ulmarini's at Vacenza,
Count Giusti's at Verona, Mondragone, Frescati,
D'Este's at Tivoli. The gardens of the Palazzo de
Pitti in Florence ; Poggio, Imperiale, Pratoline,
Hieronymo del Negro's pensile garden in Genoa,
principe d'Oria's garden, the Marquesi Devico's at
Naples, the old gardens at Baiae, Fred. Duke of Ur-
180 JOHN EVELYN

bine's garden, the gardens at Pisa, at Padoa, at Capra-

roula, at St. Michael in Bosco, in Bolognia ; the
gardens about Lago di Como, Signior Sfondrati's, &c.
In Spaine. — The incomparable garden of Aranxues,
Garicius's garden at Toledo, &c.
In France. — Duke of Orleans at Paris, Luxemburg,
Thuilleries, Palais Cardinal, Bellevue, Morines, Jard.
Royal, &c.
In other parts of France. — The garden of Froment,
of Fontaine Beleau, of the Chasteau de Fresnes, Ruel,
Richelieu, Couranet, Cauigny, Hubert, Depont in
Champagne, the most sumptuous Rincy, Nanteuile,
Maisons, Medon, Dampien, St. Germain en Lay,
Rosny, St. Cloe, Liancourt in Picardy, Isslings at
Essonne, Pidaux in Poictiers. At Anet, Valeri,
Folembourg, Villiers, Gaillon, Montpellier, Beugen-
sor, of Mons. Piereskius. In Loraine, at Nancy, the
Jesuites at Liege, and many others.
In Flanders. — The gardens of the Hofft in Brux-
elles, Oroenendael's neere it, Risewick in Holland.
The court at the Hague, the garden at Leyden, Pretor
Hundius's garden at Amsterdam.
In Germany. — The Emperor's garden at Vienna, at
Salisburgh ; the medicinall at Heidelburg, Caterus's at
Basil, Camerarius's garden of Horimburg, Scholtzius's
 GARDEN LETTERS 181

at Vratislauia, at Bonne neere Collen, the elector's

there : Christina's garden in Sweden made lately by
Mollet ; the garden at Cracovia, Warsovia, Grogning.
The elector's garden at Heidelburg, Tico Brache's
rare gardens at Vraneburge, the garden at Copenhagen.
Tho. Duke of Holstein's garden, &c.
In Turkey , the East, and other parts. — The grand
Signor's in the Serraglio, the garden at Tunis, and old
Carthage ; the garden at Cairo, at Fez, the pensal
garden at Pequin in China, also at Timplan and
Porassen ; St. Thomas's garden in the island neere
M. Hecla, perpetually verdant. In Persia the garden
at Ispahan ; the garden of Tzurbugh ; the Chan's
garden in Schamachie neere the Caspian sea, of Ardebil,
and the city of Cassuin or Arsacia ; the garden lately
made at Suratt in the East Indias by the great Mogoll's
daughter, &c.
In America. — Montezuma's floating garden, and
others in Mexico. The King of Azcapuzulco's, the
garden of Cusco ; the garden in Nova Hispania.
Count Maurice's rare garden at Boavesta in Brasile.
In England. — Wilton, Dodington, Spensherst, Sion,
Hatfield, Lord Brook's, Oxford, Kirby, Howard's,
Durden's, my elder brother George Evelyn's in
Surry, far surpassing any else in England, it may be
1 82 JOHN EVELYN

my owne poore garden may for its kind, perpetually

greene, not be vnworthy mentioning.
The gardens mentioned in Scripture, &c.
Miraculous and extraordinary gardens found upon
huge fishes' backs, men over growne with flowers, &c.
Romantique and poeticall gardens out of Sidney,
Spencer, Achilles Statius, Homer, Poliphele, &c.
All these I have already described, some briefly, some
at large according to their dignity and merite.
But this paper, and my reverence to your greate
patience, minds me of a conclusion.
Worthy, sir,
I am your most humble and most obliged servant,
J. EUELYN

To the Earle of Sandwich, Ambassador Extraordinary

in the Court of Spaine, at Madrid.
My Lord,
1 am plainely astonish'd at your bounty to me, and
I am in paine for words to expresse the sense I have of
this greate obligation.1
1 Upon his communicating particulars of Horticultural
matters in Spain.
 GARDEN LETTERS 183

And as I have ben exceedingly affected with the

Descriptions, so have I ben greately instructed in the
other particulars your Lordship mentions, and especialy
rejoice that your Excellency has taken care to have the
draughts of the Places, Fountaines, & Engines for the
Irrigation & refreshing their plantations, which may be
of singular use to us in England. And I question not
but your Excellency brings with you a collection of
Seedes ; such especially as we may not have com'only
in our Country. By your Lordship's description, the
Encina should be the Ilex major aculeata, a sucker
whereoff yet remaines in his Majesties Privie- Gardens
at White Hall, next the dore that is opposite to the
Tennis Court. I mention it the rather, because it
certainly might be propagated with us to good purpose,
for the father of this small tree I remember of a goodly
stature ; so as it yearely produc'd ripe Acorns ; though
Clusius, when he was in England, believed it to be
barren : & happily, it had borne none in his tyme. I
have sown both the Acorns of the tree, and the Cork
with successe, though I have now but few of them
remaining, through the negligence of my Gardiner ;
for they require care at the first raising, 'till they are
accostom'd to the cold, and then no rigour impeaches
them. What your Excellency meanes by the Bamade
1 84 JOHN EVELYN
Joseph, I do not comprehend ; but the Planta Ahis,
which is a monstrous kind of Sedum, will like it endure
no wett in Winter, but certainely rotts if but a drop or
two fall on it, whereas in Summer you cannot give it
drink enough. I perceive their culture of choyce &
tender Plants differs little from ours in England, and as
it has ben publish'd by me in my Calendar'tum Hortemey
which is now the third time reprinting. Stoves
absolutely destroy our Conservatories ; but if they could
be lin'd with cork, I believe it would better secure
them from the cold & moisture of the walls, than either
matrasses, or reedes with which we co'monly invest
them. I thinke I was the first that ever planted
Spanish Cardons in our country for any culinerie use,
as your Excellency has taught the blanching ; but I
know not whether they serve themselves in Spaine with
the purple beards of the Thistle, when it is in flower,
for the curdling of Milk, which it performs much
better than Reinet, and is far sweeter in the Dairy
than that liquor, which is apt to putrifie.
Your Excellency has rightly conjectur'd of the
Pome-Granad : I have allways kept it expos'd, and
the severest of our Winters dos it no prejudice ; they
will flower plentifully, but beare no fruit with us, either
kept in cases & in the repository, or set in the open
 GARDEN LETTERS 185

ayre ; at least very trifling, with the greatest industry

of stoves & other artifices.
We have Aspargus growing wild both in Lincoln-
shire 5cin other places; but your Lordship observes,
they are small & bitter, & not comparable to the
cultivated.
The red Pepper, I suppose, is what we call Ginny-
Peper, of which I have rais'd many plants, whose
pods resemble in colour the most oriental & polish'd
corall : a very little will set the throat in such a flame,
as has ben sometimes deadly, and therefore to be
sparingly us'd in sauces.
I hope your Lordship will furnish your selfe with
Melon seedes, because they will last good almost 20
years ; & so will all the sorts of Garavances, Calaburos,
& Gourds (whatever Herrera affirme) which may be
for divers oeconomical uses.
The Spanish Onion-seede is of all other the most
excellent : and yet I am not certaine, whether that
which we have out of Flanders & St. Omers, be all
the Spanish seede which we know of. My Lady
Clarendon (when living) was wont to furnish me with
seede that produc'd me prodigious cropps.
Is it not possible for your Excellency to bring over
some of those Quince and Cherry-trees, which your
1 86 JOHN EVELYN

Lordship so celebrates ? I suppose they might be

secur'd in barrells or pack'd up, as they transport other
rarities from far countries. But, my L d : I detaine
your Excellency too long in these repetitions, & forget
that I am all this while doing injury to the publiq, by
suspending you a moment from matters of a higher orb,
the Interest of States, & reconciling of Kingdomes :
And I should think so of another, did I not know
withall, how universal your comprehensions are, & how
qualified to support it. I remain, my Lord,
Sayes-Court, 21 Aug. 1668. Your &c.

To Lady Sunderland.
Deptford 4 Aug. 1690.
As for the * Kalendar ' your Ladyship mentions,
whatever assistance it may be to some Novice Gardiner,
sure I am his Lordship will find nothing in it worth
his notice but an old inclination to an innocent diversion,
& the acceptance it found with my deare (and while he
liv'd) worthy friend Mr. Cowley, upon whose reputa-
tion only it has survived seaven impressions, & is now
entering on the eighth with some considerable improve-
ments, more agreeable to the present curiosity. 'Tis
 GARDEN LETTERS 187

now, Madame, almost fourty yeares since first I writ it,

when Horticulture was not much advanc'd in England,
and neere thirty since first 'twas publish'd, which con-
sideration will I hope excuse its many defects. If in
the meane time it deserve the name of no un-usefull
trifle, 'tis all it is capable of.
When manv yeares ago I came from rambling abroad,
observ'd a little there, & a great deal more since I
came home than gave me much satisfaction, & (as
events have prov'd) scarce worth one's pursuite, I cast
about how I should employ the time which hangs on
most young men's hands, to the best advantage ; and
when books & severer studies grew tedious, & other
impertinence would be pressing, by what innocent
diversions I might sometimes relieve my selfe without
complyance to recreations I tooke no felicity in, because
they did not contribute to any improvement of the
mind. This set me upon Planting of Trees, & brought
forth my * Sylva,' which booke, infinitely beyond my
expectations, is now also calling for a fourth impression,
and has ben the occasion of propagating many Millions
of usefull timber-trees thro'out this Nation, as I may
justifie (without im'odesty) from the many letters of
acknowledgment receiv'd from gentlemen of the first
quality, and others altogether strangers to me. His late
 1 88 JOHN EVELYN

Majesty Cha. the 2d. was sometimes graciously pleas'd

to take notice of it to me, & that I had by that booke
alone incited a world of planters to repaire their broken
estates and woodes, which the greedy Rebells had
wasted & made such havock of. Upon this encourage-
ment I was once speaking to a mighty man, then in
despotic power, to mention the greate inclination I had
to serve his Majesty in a little office then newly vacant
(the salary I think hardly ^300) whose province was
to inspect the Timber-trees in his Majesties Forests,
&c. and take care of their culture and improvement ;
but this was conferr'd upon another, who, I believe
had seldom ben out of the smoke of London, where
tho' there was a greate deale of timber, there were not
many trees. I confesse I had an inclination to the
imployment upon a publique account as well as its being
suitable to my rural genius, borne as I was at Wottony
among the Woods.
Soon after this, happen'd the direfull Conflagration
of this Citty, when taking notice of our want of Bookes
of Architecture in the English tongue, I published
those most usefull directions of Ten of the best Authors
on that subject, whose works were very rarely to be
had, all of them written in French, Latine, or Italian,
& so not intelligible to our mechanics. What the
 GARDEN LETTERS 189

fruite of that labour & cost has ben (for the sculptures
which are elegant were very chargeable) the greate
improvement of our workmen, & several impressions of
the copy since, will best testifie.
In this method I thought properly to begin with
planting Trees, because they would require time for
growth and be advancing to delight & shade at least, &
were therefore by no meanes to be neglected & deferr'd,
while building might be raised and finish'd in a sum'r
or two if the owner pleas'd.
Thus, Madame, I endeavoured to do my country-
men some little service, in as natural an order as I
could for the improving & adorning their estates &
dwellings, &, if possible, make them in love with these
usefull & innocent pleasures, in exchange of a wastfull
& ignoble sloth which I had observ'd so universally
corrupted an ingenious education.
To these I likewise added my little History of
Chalcography, a treatise of the perfection of Paynting,
& of erecting Libraries, . . . Medals, with some
other intermesses which might divert within dores, as
well as altogether without.
i9o JOHN EVELYN

To Mr. Wotton.
Worthy Sir,
I should exceedingly mistake the person, and my
owne discernment, could I believe Mr. Wotton stood
in the least neede of my assistance ; but such an
expression of your's to one who so well knows his own
imperfections as I do mine, ought to be taken for a
reproche ; since I am sure it cannot proceede from
your judgment. But forgiving this fault, I most
heartily thank you for your animadversion on Sylva ;
which, tho' I frequently find it so written for fvXtta &
vX-q, wood, timber, wild & forest trees, yet indeede I
think it more properly belongs to a promiscuous casting
of severall things together, & as I think my Lord
Bacon has us'd it in his " Natural History," without
much reguard to method. Deleatur, therefore, wherever
you meete it.
Concerning the Gardning & Husbandry of the
Antients, which is your inquirie (especialy of the first),
that it had certainely nothing approaching the elegancy
of the present age, Rapinus (whom I send you) will
aboundantly satisfie you. The discourse you will find
at the end of Hortorum, lib. 40. capp. 6. 7. What
 GARDEN LETTERS 191

they cal'd their Gardens were onely spacious plots of

ground planted with platans & other shady trees in
walks, & built about with Porticos, Xisti, & noble
ranges of pillars, adorn'd with Statues, Fountaines,
Piscariae, Aviaries, &c. But for the flowry parterre,
beds of Tulips, Carnations, Auricula, Tuberose, Jon-
quills, Ranunculas, & other of our rare Coronaries, we
heare nothing of, nor that they had such a store &
variety of Exotics, Orangeries, Myrtils, & other curious
Greenes ; nor do I believe they had their Orchards in
such perfection, nor by far our furniture for the Kitchen.
Pliny indeede enumerates a world of vulgar plants &
olitories, but they fall infinitely short of our Physic
gardens, books and herbals, every day augmented by
our sedulous Botanists, & brought to us from all the
quarters of the world. And as for their Husbandry &
more rural skill, of which the same author has written
so many books in his Nat. History, especial lib. 17.
18. &c. you'l soone be judge what it was. They
tooke great care indeede of their Vines and Olives,
stercorations, ingraftings, & were diligent in observing
seasons, the course of the stars, &c. and doubtlesse
were very industrious ; but when you shall have read
over Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladio, with the Greek
Geoponics, I do not think you will have cause to
192 JOHN EVELYN

prefer them before the modern agriculture, so exceed-

ingly of late improv'd, for which you may consult &
compare our old Tusser, Markham, the Maison Rustic,
Hartlib, Walter Blith, the Philosophical Transactions,
& other books, which you know better than my selfe.
I have turn'd down the page, where poore Palissy
begins his persisting search. If you can suffer his
prolix style, you will now & then light on things not
to be despised. With him I send you a short Treatise
concerning Metals, of Sir Hugh Platts, which perhaps
you have not seene. I am sorry I have no more of
those subjects here, having left the rest in my library at
Deptford, & know not how to get them hither till I
get thither.
Sir, I am in no hast for the returne of these, if they
may be serviceable to you, but in no little paine for
the trouble your civility to mine puts one, who knows
so much better how to employ his time, than to mind
the impertinence of, Sir, your &c.
Wotton, 28 Oct. 1696.
 THE
PLAN
OF A

ROYAL GARDEN:
Describing, and Shewing the Amplitude, and
Extent of that part of Georgicks^ which belongs
to Horticulture ;
In Three Books

BOOK I

Chap. I. Of Principles and Elements in general.

Chap. II. Of the four (vulgarly reputed) Elements;
Fire, Air, Water, Earth.
Chap. III. Of the Celestial Influences, and particularly
of the Sun, Moon, and of the Climates.
Chap. IV. Of the Four Annual Seasons.
Chap. V. Of the Natural Mould and Soil of a Garden.
Chap. VI. Of Composts, and Stercoration, Repastina-
tion, Dressing and Stirring the Earth and Mould
of a Garden.
193 o
194 PLAN OF A ROYAL GARDEN

BOOK II

Chap. I. A Garden Deriv'd and Defin'd ,• its Dignity T

Distinction, and Sorts.

Chap. II. Of a Gardiner, how to be qualify 'd, re-

garded and rewarded ; his Habitation, Cloathing,
Diet, Under- Workmen and Assistants.

Chap. III. Of the Instruments belonging to a Gardiner ;

their various Uses and Machanical Powers.

Chap. Gardiners.
IV. Of the Terms us'd, and affected by

Chap. V. Of Enclosing, Fencing, Platting, and dis-

posing of the Ground ; and of Terraces, Walks,
Allies, Malls, Boivling-Greens, Sec.

Chap. VI. Of a Seminary, Nurseries ; and of Pro-

pagating Trees, Plants and Flowers, Planting and
Transplanting, Sec.

Chap. VII. Of Knots, Parterres, Compartment sy

Borders, Banks and Embossments.

Chap. VIII. Of Groves, Labyrinths, Dedals, Cabinets*

Cradles, Close- Walks, Galleries, Pavilions, Portico's,
Lanterns, and other Relievo's ; of Topiary and
Hortulan Architecture.
 PLAN OF A ROYAL GARDEN 195

Chap. IX. Of Fountains, letto's, Cascades, Rivulets,

Piscina's, Canals, Baths, and other Natural, and
Artificial Waterworks.

Chap. X. Of Rocks, Grotts, Crypt*, Mounts, Pre-

cipices, Ventiducts, Conservatories, of Ice and
Snow, and other Hortulan Refreshments.

Chap. XL Of Statues, Busts, Obelisis, Columns, In-

scriptions, Dials, Vasa's, Perspectives, Paintingsr
and other Ornaments.

Chap. XII. Of Gazon-Theatres, Amphitheatres, Arti-

ficial Echo's, Automata and Hydraulic Muiick.
Chap. XIII. Of Aviaries, Apiaries, Vivaries, Insects,
&c.

Chap. XIV. Of Verdures, Perennial Greens, and

Perpetual Springs.

Chap. XV. Of Orangeries, Oporotheca's, Hybernaculay

Stoves, and Conservatories of Tender Plants and
Fruits, and how to order them.

Chap. XVI. Of the Coronary Garden : Floivers and

Rare Plants, how they are to be Raised, Governed
and Improved ; and how the Gardiner is to keep
his Register.

Chap. XVII. Of the Philosophical Medical Garden.

Chap. XVIII. Of Stupendous and Wonderful Plants.

196 PLAN OF A ROYAL GARDEN
Chap. XIX. Of the Hort-Tard and Potagere ; and
what Fruit-Trees, Olitory and Esculent Plants,
may be admitted into a Garden of Pleasure.
Chap. XX. Of Sallets.

Chap. XXI. Of a Vineyard, and Directions concern-

ing the making of Wine and other Vinous Liquors,
and of Teas.

Chap. XXII. Of Watering, Pruning, Plashing, Palii-

sading, Nailing, Clipping, Mowing, Rowling,
Weeding, Cleansing, &c

Chap. XXIII. Of the Enemies and Infirmities to

which Gardens are obnoxious, together with the
Remedies.

Chap. XXIV. Of the Gardiner's Almanack or

Kalendarium Hortense, directing what he is to
do Monthly, and what Fruits and Flowers are
in prime.

BOOK III

Chap. I. Of Conserving, Properating, Retarding,

Multiplying, Transmuting, and Altering the Species,
Forms and (reputed) Substantial Qualities of
Plants, Fruits and Flowers.
 PLAN OF A ROYAL GARDEN 197
Chap. II. Of the Hortulan Elaboratory ; and of
distilling and extracting of Waters , Spirits, Essences,
Salts, Colours, Resuscitation of Plants, with other
rare Experiments, and an Account of their
Virtues.

Chap. III. Of composing the Hortus Hycmalis, and

making Books, of Natural, Arid Plants and
Flowers, with several Ways of Preserving them
in their Beauty.

Chap. IV. Of Painting of Flowers, Flowers enamelFd,

Silk, Callico's, Paper, Wax, Gums, Pasts, Horns,
Glass, Shells, Feathers, Moss, Pietra Comes sa,
Inlayings, Embroyderies, Carvings, and other
Artificial Representations of them.

Chap. V. Of Crowns, Chaplets, Garlands, Festoons,

Encarpa, Flower-Pots, Nosegays, Poesies, Deckings,
and other Flowery Pomps.

Chap. VI. Of Hortulan Laws and Privileges.

Chap. VII. Of the Hortulan Study, and of a Library,

Authors and Books assistant to it.

Chap. VIII. Of Hortulan Entertainments, Natural,

Divine, Moral, and Political ; with divers
Historical Passages, and Solemnities, to shew
the Riches, Beauty, Wonder, Plenty, Delight, and
Universal Use of Gardens.
198 PLAN OF A ROYAL GARDEN
Chap. IX. Of Garden Burial.
Chap. X. Of Paradise, and of the most Famous
Gardens in the World, Ancient and Modern.

Chap. XL The Description of a Villa.

Chap. XII. The Corollary and Conclusion.
Laudato ingentia rura,
Ex'wuum colito.
 GARDEN CUTTINGS FROM

EVELYN'S DIARY

Wotton, the mansion house of my father, left him

by my grandfather, (now my eldest brother's) is
situated in the most Southern part of the Shire, and
tho' in a vally, yet really upon part of Lyth Hill, one
of the most eminent (993 feet) in England for the
prodigious prospect to be seen from its summit, tho'
by few observed. From it may be discern'd 12 or 13
Counties, with part of the Sea on the Coast of Sussex,
in a serene day ; the house large and ancient, suitable
to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed
with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as
in the judgement of Strangers as well as Englishmen
it may be compared to one of the most pleasant Seates
in the Nation, and most tempting for a great person
and a wanton purse to render it conspicuous : it has
rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water, in
abundance.
The distance from London199 little more than 20
miles (nearly 26 miles) and yet so securely placed as
zoo JOHN EVELYN

if it were ioo; three miles from Dorking, which

serves it abundantly with provisions as well of land as
sea ; 8 from Gilford, 1 4 from Kingston. I will say
nothing of the ayre, because the preeminence is uni-
versally given to Surrey, the soil being dry and sandy ;
but I should speake much of the gardens, fountaines,
and groves, that adorne it ; were they not as generaly
knowne to be amongst the most natural, and (til this
later and universal luxury of the whole nation, since
abounding in such expenses) the most magnificent that
England afforded, and which indeede gave one of the
first examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue
and follow'd in the managing of their waters, and other
ornaments of that nature. Let me add, the contiguity
of 7 Mannors, the patronage of the livings about it,
and, what is none of the least advantages, a good
neighbourhood. All which conspire to render it fit
for the present possessor, my worthy brother, and his
noble lady, whose constant liberality give them title
both to the place and the affections of all that know
them. Thus, with the poet,
Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine cunctos
Ducit et immemores non sinit esse sui.

19 Aug., 1 64 1. We visited the Haff or Prince's

 OX GARDEN'S 201
Court at the Hague, with the adjoining gardens, which
were full of ornament, close-walks, statues, marbles,
grotts, fountains, and artiticiall musiq, Sec.

But there was nothing about this Citty which more

ravished me than those delicious shades and walkes of
stately trees, which render the fortified workes of the
towne one of the sweetest places in Europ ; nor did I
ever observe a more quiet, cleane, elegantly built, and
civil place, then this magnificent and famous Citty of
Antwerp.

Brussels. By an accident we could not see the

Library. There is a faire terrace which looks to the
Vine-yard, in which, on pedestalls, are fix'd the statues
of all the Spanish Kings of the House of Austria. The
opposite walls are paynted by Rubens, being an history of
the late tumults in Belgia ; in the last piece the Arch-
Dutcbesse shutts a greate payre of gates upon Mars,
who is coming out of hell, arm'd, and in a menacing
posture. On another, the Infanta is seen taking leave
of Don Philip.
From hence we walked into the Parke, which for
202 JOHN EVELYN

being intirely within the walls of the Citty is particu-

larly remarkable ; nor is it less pleasant than if in the
most solitary recesses, so naturally is it furnish'd with
whatever may render it agreeable, melancholy, and
country-like. Here is a stately heronry, divers springs
of water, artificial cascades, rocks, grotts, one whereof
is composed of the extravagant rootes of trees cunningly
built and hung together. In this Parke are both
fallow and red deare.
From hence we were led into the Manege, and out
of that into a most sweete and delicious garden, where
was another grott, of more neate and costly materials,
full of noble statues, and entertaining us with artificial
musiq ; but the hedge of water, in forme of lattice-
worke, which the fontanier caused to ascend out of the
earth by degrees, exceedingly pleased and surpris'd
me, for thus with a pervious wall, or rather a palisad
hedge, of water, was the whole parterre environ'd.
There is likewise a faire Aviary, and in the court
next it are kept divers sorts of animals, rare & exotic
fowle, as eagles, cranes, storks, bustards, pheasants of
several kinds, a duck having 4 wings, &c. In another
division of the same close, are rabbits of an almost
perfect yellow colour.
 ON GARDENS 203

Paris. 8 Feb., 1644. I took coach and went to see

the famous Jardine Royale, which is an enclosure walled
in, consisting of all varieties of ground for planting and
culture of medical simples. It is well chosen, having
in it hills, meadows, wood and upland, naturall and
artificial, and is richly stor'd with exotic plants. In
the middle of the Parterre is a faire fountaine. There
is a very fine house, chapel, laboratory, orangery, &
other accommodations for the President, who is allways
one of the King's cheife Physitians.
From hence we went to the other side of the towne,
and to some distance from it, to the Bois de Vincennes,
going by the Bastille, which is the Fortresse Tower
and Magazine of this great Citty. It is very spacious
within, and there the Grand Master of the Artillery
has his house, with faire gardens and walkes.

In another more privat garden (in the Louvre)

towards the Queene's apartment is a walke or cloyster
under arches, whose terrace is paved with stones of a
greate breadth ; it looks towards the river, and has a
pleasant aviary, fountaine, stately cypresses, &c. On
the river are seene a prodigious number of barges and
boates of great length, full of haye, come, wood, wine,
204 JOHN EVELYN

&c. Under the long gallery dwell goldsmiths, payn-

ters, statuaries, and architects, who being the most
famous for their art in Christendom, have stipends
allowed them by the King. We went into that of
Monsieur Saracin, who was moulding for an image of a
Madona to be cast in gold, of a greate size, to be sent by
the Queene Regent to Lauretto, as an offering for the
birth of the Dauphine, now the young King of France.
I finish'd this day with a walke in the greate garden
of the Thuilleries, which is rarely contrived for privacy,
shade, or company, by groves, plantations of tall trees,
especially that in the middle, being of elmes, another
of mulberys. There is a labyrinth of cypresse, noble
hedges of pomegranates, fountaines, fishponds, and an
aviary. There is an artificial echo, redoubling the
words distinctly, and it is never without some faire
nymph singing to it. Standing at one of the focus's,
which is under a tree, or little cabinet of hedges, the
voice seems to descend from the clouds ; at another
as if it was under-ground. This being at the bottom
of the garden, we were let into another, which being
kept with all imaginable accuratenesse as to the orangery,
precious shrubes, and rare fruites, seem'd a paradise. I
From a tarrace in this place we saw so many coaches,
as one would hardly think could be maintained in the
 OX GARDENS 205

whole Citty, going, late as it was in the year, towards

the Course, which is a place adjoyning, of ncere an
English mile long, planted with 4 rows of trees, making
a large circle in the middle. This Course is walled
about, neere breast high, with squar'd freestone, and
has a stately arch at the entrance, with sculpture and
statues about it, built by Mary di Medices. Here it is
that the gallants and ladys of the Court take the ayre
and divert themselves, as with us in Hide Park, the
circle being capable of containing an hundred coaches
to turne commodiously, and the larger of the plantations
for 5 or 6 coaches a brest.
Returning through the Thuilleries, we saw a build-
ing in which are kept wild beasts for the King's
pleasure, a beare, a wolfe, a wild boare, a leopard, &c.
27 Feb. Accompany'd with some English gentle-
men, we tooke horse to see St. Germains en Lay, a
stately country-house of the King, some 5 leagues
from Paris. By the way we alighted at St. Cloes,1
where, on an eminence neere the river, the Archbishop
of Paris has a garden, for the house is not very con-
siderable, rarely water'd and furnish'd with fountaines,
statues, and groves ; the walkes are very faire ; the
fountain of Laocoon io in a large square pool, throwing
1 Saint Cloud.
 2o6 JOHN EVELYN

the water neere 40 feet high, and having about it a

multitude of statues and basines, and is a surprising
object ; but nothing is more esteem'd than the cascade
falling from the greate stepps into the lowest and
longest walke from the Mount Parnassus, which con-
sists of a grotto, or shell-house on the summit of the
hill, wherein are divers water-workes and contrivances
to wet the spectators ; this is covered with a fayre
cupola, the walls paynted with the Muses, and statues
placed thick about it, whereof some are antiq and
good. In the upper walks are two perspectives, seem-
ing to enlarge the allys. In this garden are many
other contrivances. The Palace, as I said, is not
extraordinary. The outer walles onely paynted a
fresca. In the Court is a Volary, and the statues of
Charles IX. Hen. III. IV. and Lewis XIII. on
horseback, mezzo-relievod in plaster. In the garden
is a small chapell ; and under shelter is the figure of
Cleopatra, taken from the Belvidere original, with
others. From the tarrace above is a tempest well
paynted, and there is an excellent prospect towards
Paris, the meadows, & river.
At an inn in this village is an host who treats all
the greate persons in princely lodgings for furniture
and plate, but they pay well for it, as I have don.
 ON GARDENS 207

Indeed the entertainment is very splendid, and not

unreasonable, considering the excellent manner of
dressing their meate, and of the service. Here are
many debauches and excessive revellings, being out of
observance.
About a league farther we went to see Cardinal
Richelieu's villa at Rueil. The house is small, but
fairely built, in form of a castle, moated round. The
offices are towards the road, and over against are large
vineyards walled in.
Though the house is not of the greatest, the gardens
about it are so magnificent that I doubt whether Italy
has any exceeding it for all rarities of pleasure. The
garden nearest the pavilion is a parterre, having in the
middst divers noble brasse statues, perpetually spouting
water into an ample bassin, with other figures of the
same metal ; but what is most admirable is the vast
enclosure, and variety of ground, in the large garden,
containing vineyards, cornefields, meadows, groves,
(whereof one is one of perennial greens), and walkes
of vast lengthes, so accurately kept and cultivated, that
nothing can be more agreeable. On one of these
walkes, within a square of tall trees, is a basilisc of
copper, which managed by the fountainere casts water
neere 60 feet high, and will of itself move round so
208 JOHN EVELYN

swiftly, that one can hardly escape wetting. This

leads to the Citroniere, where is a noble conserve of
all those rarities ; and at the end of it is the Arch of
Constantine, painted on a wall in oyle, as large as the
real one at Rome, so well don that even a man skill'd
in painting may mistake it for stone and sculpture.
The skie and hills which seeme to be betweene the
arches are so naturall that swallows and other birds,
thinking to fly through, have dashed themselves against
the wall. At the further part of this walke is that
plentiful though artificial cascade which rolls down a
very steepe declivity, and over the marble steps and
bassins, with an astonishing noyse and fury ; each
basin hath a jetto in it, flowing like sheetes of trans-
parent glasse, especially that which rises over the greate
shell of lead, from whence it glides silently downe a
channell thro' the middle of a spacious gravel walke
terminating in a grotto. Here are also fountaines that
cast water to a great height, and large ponds, 2 of
which have islands for harbour of fowles, of which
there is store. One of these islands has a receptacle
for them built of vast pieces of rock, neere 50 feet
high, growne over with mosse, ivy, &c. shaded at a
competent distance with tall trees, in this the fowles
lay eggs and breede. We then saw a large and very
 ON GARDENS 209

rare grotto of shell-worke, in the shape of satyres and

other wild fancys : in the middle stands a marble table,
on which a fountaine plays in forms of glasses, cupps,
crosses, fanns, crownes, Sec. Then the fountaineere
represented a showre of raine from the topp, mett by
small jetts from below. At going out two extravagant
musqueteeres shot us with a streme of water from their
musket barrells. Before this grotto is a long poole
into which ran divers spouts of water from leaden
escallop bassins. The viewing this paradise made us
late at St. Germains.
The first building of this palace is of Cha. V. called
the Sage ; but Francis I. (that true virtuoso) made it
compleate, speaking as to the style of magnificence then
in fashion, which was with too greate a mixture of the
Gotic, as may be seen in what there is remaining of
his in the old Castle, an irregular peece as built on the
old foundation, and having a moate about it. It has yet
some spacious & handsome roomes of state, & a chapell
neately paynted. The new Castle is at some distance,
divided from this by a court, of a lower, but more
modern designe, built by Hen. IV. To this belong
6 tarraces built of brick & stone, descending in cascads
towards the river, cut out of the naturall hill, having
under them goodly vaulted galleries ; of these, 4 have
210 JOHN EVELYN

subterranean grotts & rocks, where are represented

severall objects in the manner of sceanes, and other
motions by force of water, shewn by the light of
torches onely ; amongst these is Orpheus, with his
musiq, & the animalls, which dance after his harp ; in
the second is the King and Dolphin (Dauphin); in
the third is Neptune sounding his trumpet, his charriot
drawne by sea-horses ; in the fourth Perseus & Andro-
meda ; mills ; hermitages ; men fishing ; birds chirp-
ing ; and many other devices. There is also a dry
grott to refresh in, all having a fine prospect towards
the river and the goodly country about it, especially the
forrest. At the bottom is a parterre ; the upper tarrace
neere half a mile in length, with double declivities,
arch'd and baluster'd with stone, of vast and royal cost.
In the Pavilion of the new Castle are many faire
roomes, well paynted, and leading into a very noble
garden and parke, where is a pall-maill, in the midst
of which, on one of the sides, is a Chapell, with stone
cupola, tho' small, yet of an handsome order of archi-
tecture. Out of the parke you goe into the forrest,
which being very large is stor'd with deare, wild
boares, wolves, and other wild game. The Tennis
Court, and Cavalerizzo for the menag'd horses, are
also observable.
 ON GARDENS 211

We return'd to Paris by Madrid, another villa of

the King's, built by Francis I. and called by that
name to absolve him of his oath that he would not go
from Madrid, in which he was prisoner in Spayne, but
from whence he made his escape. This house is also
built in a park, walled in. We next called in at the
Bonnes hommes, well situated, with a faire Chapel and
Library.
1 March. I went to see the Count de Liancourts'
Palace in the Rue de Seine, which is well built.
Towards his study and bedchamber joyns a little
garden, which tho' very narrow, by the addition of a
well painted perspective is to appearance greatly en-
larged ;to this there is another part, supported by
arches, in which runs a streame of water, rising in the
aviary, out of a statue, and seeming to flow for some
miles, by being artificially continued in the painting,
when it sinkes downe at the wall. It is a very agree-
able deceipt. At the end of this garden is a little
theater, made to change with divers pretty seanes, and
the stage so ordered that with figures of men & women
paynted on light-boards, and cut out, and, by a person
who stands underneath, made to act as if they were
speaking, by guiding them, & reciting words in different
tones as the parts require. We were led into a round
212 JOHN EVELYN

cabinet, where was a neate invention for reflecting

lights by lining divers sconces with thin shining plates
of gilded copper.

Having seene the roomes (at Fontainebleau) we

went to the Volary, which has a cupola in the middle
of it, greate trees and bushes, it being full of birds who
drank at two fountaines. There is a faire Tennis
Court & noble Stables ; but the beauty of all are the
Gardens. In the Court of the Fountaines stand
divers antiquities and statues, especialy a Mercury. In
the Queenes Garden is a Diana ejecting a fountaine,
with numerous other brasse statues.
The Greate Garden, 180 toises long and 154 wide,
has in the centre a fountayne of Tyber of a Colossean
figure of brasse, with the Wolfe over Romulus &
Rhemus. At each corner of the garden rises a foun-
taine. In the Garden of the Fishpond is a Hercules
of white marble. Next is the Garden of the Pines,
and without that a Canale of an English mile in length,
at the end of which rise 3 jettos in the form of a fleur
de lys, of a great height ; on the margin are excellent
walkes planted with trees. The carps come familiarly
to hand £to be fedj. Hence they brought us to a
 OX GARDENS 213

spring, which they say being first discover'd by a dog,

gave occasion of beautifying this place, both with the
Palace and Gardens. The rocks at some distance in
the Forest, yeald one of the most august & stupendous
prospects imaginable. The Parke about this place
is very large, and the Towne is full of noblemen's
houses.

1 April. I went to see more exactly the roomes of

the fine Palace of Luxemburge, in the Fauxborg St.
Germains, built by Mary de Medices, and I think one
of the most noble, entire, and finish'd piles that is to
be seen, taking it with the garden and all its accom-
plishments. The gallery is of the painting of Rubens,
being the history of the Foundresses life, rarely
designed ; at the end of it is the Duke of Orleans's
Library, well furnished with excellent bookes, all
bound in maroquin and gilded, the valans of the
shelves being of greene velvet fring'd with gold. In
the cabinet joyning it are onely the smaler volumes,
with 6 cabinets of medails, and an excellent collection
of shells, and achates, whereof some are prodigiously
rich. This Duke being very learn'd in medails and
plants, nothing of that kind escapes him. There are
2i+ JOHN EVELYN

other spacious, noble, and princely furnish'd roomes,

which looke towards the gardens, and which are
nothing inferior to the rest.
The Court below is formed into a square by a
corridor, having over the chiefe entrance a stately
cupola, covered with stone ; the rest is cloister'd and
arch'd on pillasters of rustiq worke. The tarrace
ascending before the front, paved with white & black
marble, is balustred with white marble, exquisitely

polish'd.
Onely the Hall below is low, and the stayrecase
somewhat of an heavy designe, but the faciata towards
the parterre, which is also arched & vaulted with
stone, is of admirable beauty, and full of sculpture.
The Gardens are neere an English mile in com-
passe, enclos'd with a stately wall, and in a good ayre.
The parterre is indeed of box, but so rarely design' d
and accurately kept cut, that the embroidery makes a
wonderful effect to the lodgings which front it. 'Tis
divided into 4 squares, & as many circular knots,
having in the center a noble basin of marble neere
30 feet in diameter (as I remember), in which a triton
of brasse holds a dolphin that casts a girandola of
water neere 30 foote high, playing perpetualy, the
water being convey'd from Arceuil by an aqueduct of
 ON GARDENS 215

stone, built after the old Roman magnificence. About

this ample parterre, the spacious walk.es & all included,
runs a border of freestone, adorned with pedestalls for
potts and statues, and part of it neere the stepps of
the terrace, with a raile and baluster of pure white
marble.
The walkes are exactly faire, long, & variously
descending, and so justly planted with limes, elms, &
other trees, that nothing can be more delicious, especi-
aly that of the hornebeam hedge, which being high
and stately, butts full on the fountaine.
Towards the farther end is an excavation intended
for a vast fishpool, but never finish'd. Neere it is an
enclosure for a garden of simples, well kept, and here
the Duke keepes tortoises in greate number, who use
the poole of water on one side of the garden. Here
is also a conservatory for snow. At the upper part
towards the Palace is a grove of tall elmes cutt into a
starr, every ray being a walk, whose center is a large
fountaine.
The rest of the ground is made into severall in-
closures (all hedgeworke or rowes of trees) of whole
fields, meadowes, boxages [bocages^, some of them
containing divers acres.
Next the streete side, and more contiguous to the
 216 JOHN EVELYN

house, are knotts in trayle or grasse worke, where like-

wise runs a fountaine. Towards the grotto and stables,
within a wall, is a garden of choyce flowers, in which
the Duke spends many thousand pistoles. In sum,
nothing is wanting to render this palace and gardens
perfectly beautifull & magnificent ; nor is it one of the
least diversions to see the number of persons of quality,
citizens and strangers, who frequent it, and to whom
all accesse is freely permitted, so that you shall see
some walkes & retirements full of gallants and
ladys ; in others melancholy fryers ; in others studious
scholars ; in others jolly citizens, some sitting or
lying on the grasse, others runing, jumping, some
playing at bowles and ball, others dancing and singing ;
and all this without the least disturbance, by reason of
the largeness of the place. What is most admirable is,
you see no gardners or men at worke, and yet all
is kept in such exquisite order as if they did nothing
else but work ; it is so early in the morning, that all is
dispatch'd and done without the least confusion.
I have been the larger in the description of this
Paradise, for the extraordinary delight I have taken in
those sweete retirements. The Cabinet and Chapell
neerer the garden front have some choyce pictures.
All the houses neere this are also noble palaces,
 ON GARDENS 217

especialy petite JLuxemburge. The ascent of the

streete is handsome from its breadth, situation, and
buildings.

The next morning I went to the Garden of Monsieur

Morine, who from being an ordinary gardner is become
one of the most skillfull and curious persons in France
for his rare collection of shells, flowers, & insects.
His Garden is of an exact oval figure, planted with
cypresse cutt flat & set even as a wall: the tulips,
anemonies, ranunculus's, crocus's, &c. are held to be
of the rarest, and draw all the admirers of such things
to his house during the season. He lived in a kind of
Hermitage at one side of his garden, where his collec-
tion of purselane and coral, whereof one is carved into
a large Crucifix, is much esteemed. He has also
bookes of prints, by Albert fjDurer], Van Leyden,
Calot, &c. His collection of all sorts of insects,
especially of Butterflys, is most curious ; these he
spreads and so medicates that no corruption invading
them, he keepes them in drawers, so plac'd as to
represent a beautifull piece of tapistre.
He shew'd me the remarks he had made on their
propagation, which he promis'd to publish. Some of
2i 8 JOHN EVELYN

these, as also of his best flowers, he had caus'd to be

painted in miniature by rare hands, and some in oyle.
I went to see divers of the fairest palaces, as that
of Vendosme, very large and stately ; Longueville,
Guyse, Condi, Chevereuse ; Nevers, esteem'd one of
the best in Paris towards the river.
I often went to the Palais Cardinal, bequeathed by
Richelieu to the King, on condition that it should be
called by his name ; at this time the King resided in
it, because of the building of the Louvre. It is a
very noble house, tho' somewhat low ; the gallerys,
paintings of the most illustrious persons of both sexes,
the Queenes bathes, presence chamber with its rich
carved and gilded roofe, theatre, & large garden, in
which is an ample fountaine, grove, and maille,1 are
worthy of remark. Here I also frequently went to
see them ride and exercise the Greate Horse, especialy
at the Academy of Monsieur du Plessis, and de Veau,
whose scholes of that art are frequented by the

1 i.e. Play-ground for Pallle Maille (Pall Mall), "a pastime

not unlike goff" according to Strutt ; but more like croquet,
if we may trust Cotgrave's Dictionary: — " Paile-Maille is
a game wherein a round box ball is struck with a mallet
through a high arch of iron, which he that can do at the
fewest blows, or at the number agreed upon, wins."
 ON GARDENS 219

Nobility ; and here also young gentlemen are taught to

fence, daunce, play on musiq, and something in forti-
fication &the mathematics. The designe is admirable,
some keeping neere an hundred brave horses, all
managed to the greate saddle.

We ariv'd at Blois in the evening (April 28, 1644).

The town is hilly, uneven, and rugged. It stands on
the side of the Loire, having suburbs joyn'd by a stately
stone bridg, on which is a pyramid with an inscription.
At the entrance of the castle is a stone statue of Lewis
XII. on horseback, as large as life, under a Gothic
state ; and a little below are these words :
" Hie ubi natus erat dextro Ludovicus Olympo
Sumpsit honorata regia sceptra manu :
Foelix quse tanti fulsit Lux nuncia Regis
Gallica non alio principe digna fuit."
Under this is a very wide payre of gates, nailed full
of wolves and wild-boars' heads. Behind the castle
the present Duke Gaston had begun a faire building,
through which we walked into a large garden, esteemed
for its furniture one of the fairest, especialy for simples
and exotic plants, in which he takes extraordinary
delight. On the right hand is a longe gallery full of
 220 JOHN EVELYN

ancient statues and inscriptions, both of marble and

brasse ; the length, 300 paces, divides the garden into
higher and lower ground, having a very noble foun-
taine. There is the portrait of an hart, taken in the
forest by Lewis XII. which has 24 antlers on its head.
In the Collegiate Church of St. Saviour we saw many
sepulchres of the Earls of Blois.
Sunday, being May day, we walked up into the
Pall Mall, very long and so nobly shaded with tall
trees (being in the midst of a great woode), that,
unless that of Tours, I had not seene a statelier.

The Gardens (at Cardinal Richelieu's Palace)

without are very large, and the parterres of excellent
imbrodry, set with many statues of brasse and marble ;
the groves, meadows, and walkes are a real paradise.

This Palace of Negros (Palazzo Negrone, at Genoa)

is richly furnish'd with the rarest pictures ; on the terrace,
or hilly garden, there is a grove of stately trees amongst
which are sheepe, shepherds, and wild beasts, cut very
artificially in a grey stone ; fountaines, rocks, and fish-
ponds : casting your eyes one way, you would imagine
 ON GARDENS 221

yourselfe in a wildernesse and silent country ; sideways,

in the heart of a great citty; and backwards, in the
middst of the sea. All this is within one acre of
ground.

To this Palace (of Prince d'Orias) belong three

gardens, the first whereof is beautified with a terrace,
supported by pillars of marble ; there is a fountaine of
eagles, and one of Neptune with other Sea-gods, all of
the purest white marble ; they stand in a most ample
basine of the same stone. At the side of this garden
is such an aviary as Sir Fra. Bacon describes in his
Sermones JideBum, or Essays, wherein grow trees of
more than two foote diameter, beside cypresse, myrtils,
lentiscs, and other rare shrubs, which serve to nestle
and pearch all sorts of birds, who have ayre and place
enough under their ayrie canopy, supported with huge
iron worke, stupendous for its fabrick and the charge.
The other two gardens are full of orange-trees, citrons,
and pomegranads, fountaines, grotts, and statues ; one
of the latter is a Colossal Jupiter, under which is the
sepulchre of a beloved dog, for the care of which one
of this family receiv'd of the K. of Spaine 500 crownes
a yeare during the life of that faithfull animal. The
222 JOHN EVELYN

reservoir of water here is a most admirable piece of

art ; and so is the grotto over against it.

The garden (of the Palazzo di Strozzi, at Florence)

has every variety, hills, dales, rocks, groves, aviaries,
vivaries, fountaines, especialy one of five jettos, the
middle basin being one of the longest stones I ever saw.
Here is every thing to make such a paradise delightfull.
In the garden I saw a rose grafted on an orange-tree.
There was much topiary worke, and columns in archi-
tecture about the hedges.

Rome. Returning home we view'd the Palazzo de

Medici, which was a house of the Duke of Florence,
neere our lodging, on the brow of Mons Pincius, having
a fine prospect towards the Campo Marzo. It is a
magnificent, strong building, having a substruction very
remarkable, and a portico supported with columns
towards the gardens, with two huge lions of marble at
the end of the balustrade. The whole outside of the
faciata is encrusted with antiq and rare basse-relieves
and statues. Descending into the garden is a noble
fountaine govern'd by a Mercury of brasse. At a
 ON GARDENS 225

little distance on the left is a lodge full of fine statues,

amongst which the Sabines is antiq and singularly rare-
In the arcado neere this stand 24 statues of great
price, and hard by is a mount planted with cypresses
representing a fortresse, with a goodly fountaine in
the middle. Here is also a row balustred with white
marble, covered over with the natural shrubbs, ivy,
and other perennial greenes, divers statues and heads
being placed as in niches. At a little distance are
those fam'd statues of Niobe and her family, in all 15,
as large as the life, of which we have ample mention
in Pliny, esteemed among the pieces of best worke in
the world for the passions they expresse, and all other
perfections of that stupendous art. There is in this
garden a faire obelisq full of hieroglyphics. In going
out, the fountaine before the front casts water neere
50 foote in height, when it is received in a most ample
marble basin. Here they usually rode the greate-horse
every morning, which gave me much diversion from
the terrace of my owne chamber, where I could see all
their motions.

We went to see Prince Ludovisio's villa where was

formerly the Viridarium of the poet Sallust. The
224 JOHN EVELYN

house is very magnificent, and the extent of the ground

is exceeding large considering that it is in a Citty; in
every quarter of the garden are antiq statues, and
walkes planted with cypresse. To this garden belongs
a house of retirement built in the figure of a crosse
after a particular ordonance, especially the stayrecase.
The whitenesse and smoothnesse of the pargeting was
a thing I much observ'd, being almost as even and
polish'd as if it had been marble.

The garden which is called the Behidere di Monte

Cavalhy in emulation to that of the Vatican, is most
excellent for ayre and prospect, its exquisite fountaines,
close walkes, grotts, piscinas or stews for fish, planted
about with venerable cypresses, and refresh'd with
water-musiq, aviaries, and other rarities.

I walked to Villa Borghesi, a house and ample

garden on Mons Pincius, yet somewhat without the
Citty walls, circumscrib'd by another wall full of small
turrets and banqueting-houses, which makes it appeare
at a distance like a little towne. Within it is an elysium
of delight, having in the centre a noble Palace ; but
the enterance of the garden presents us with a very
 OX GARDENS 225

glorious fabrick or rather dore-case adorn'd with divers

excellent marble statues. This garden abounded with
all sorts of delicious fruit and exotiq simples, fountaines
of sundry inventions, groves, and small rivulets. There
is also adjoining to it a vivarium for estriges (ostriches),
peacocks, swanns, cranes, &c. and divers strange beasts,
deare, and hares. The grotto is very rare, and represents
among other devices artificial raine, and sundry shapes
of vessells, flowers, &c. which is effected by changing
the heads of the fountaines. The groves are of cypresse,
laurell, pine, myrtil, olive, &c. The 4 sphinxes are very
antique and worthy observation. To this is a volary
full of curious birds. The house is square, with turrets
from which the prospect is excellent towards Rome
and the environing hills covered as they now ars with
snow, which indeed commonly continues even a great
part of the sum'er, affording great refreshment. Round <2
the house is a balustre of white marble, with frequent
jettoes of water, and adorn'd with a multitude of
statues.

I went to see the garden and house of the Aldo-

brandini, now Cardinal Borghese's. This palace is,
for architecture, magnificence, pompe and statr, one of
226 JOHN EVELYN

the most considerable about the Citty. It has 4 fronts,

and a noble Piazza before it. . . . In the garden are
many fine fountaines, the walls cover'd with citron trees,
which being rarely spread invest the stone worke intirely ;
and towards the streete, at a back gate, the Port is so
handsomely cloath'd with ivy as much pleas'd me. About
this Palace are many noble antiq bassirelievi,twoespecialy
are placed on the ground, representing armor and other
military furniture of the Romans ; beside these stand
about the garden numerous rare statues, altars, and
urnes. Above all, for antiquity and curiosity (as being
the onely rarity of that nature now knowne to remaine)
is that piece of old Roman paynting representing the
Roman Sponsalia, or celebration of their marriage,
judged to be 1400 yeares old, yet are the colours very
lively and the designe very intire, tho' found deepe in
the ground. For this morcell of paynting's sake onely
'tis sayd that Borghesi purchased the house, because
this being on a wall in a kind of banqueting house in
the garden could not be removed, but passe with the
inheritance.

I went farther up the hill to the Pope's Palace at

Monte Cavallo, where I now saw the garden more
 ON GARDENS 227

exactly, and found it to be one of the most magnificent

and pleasant in Rome. I am told the gardener is
annualy alowed 2000 scudi for the keeping it. Here
I observ'd hedges of myrtle above a man's height ;
others of laurell, oranges, nay of ivy and juniper ; the
close walks, and rustic grotto ; a crypta, of which the
laver or basin is of one vast, intire, antiq porphyrie,
and below this flows a plentifull cascade ; the steppes
of the grotto and the roofs being of rich Mosaiq.
Here are hydraulic organs, and a fish-pond in an ample
bath.

By these (stairs) we descended into the Vatican

Gardens cal'd Belvedere, where entring first into a kind
of Court we were shown those incomparable statues (so
fam'd by Pliny and others) of Laocoon with his three
sonns embrac'd by an huge serpent, all of one entire
Parian stone very white and perfect, somewhat bigger
then the life, the worke of those three celebrated
sculptors, Agesandrus, Polidorus, and Artemidorus,
Rhodians ; it was found among the ruines of Titus's
Baths, and placed here. ... In the Garden without
this (which containes a vast circuit of ground) are
many stately fountaines, especialy two casting water
228 JOHN EVELYN

into antiq lavors brought from Titus's Bathes ; some

faire grotts and water works, that noble cascade where
the ship daunces, with divers other pleasant inventions,
walkes, terraces, meanders, fruite- trees, and a most goodly
prospect over the greatest part of the Citty. One
fountaine under the gate I must not omitt, consisting
of three jettos of water gushing out of the mouthes
or proboscis of bees (the armes of the late Pope),
because of the inscription :—
Quid miraris Apem, quae mel de floribus haurit?
Si tibi mellitam gutture fundit aquam.

We descried Mount Cascubus, famous for the generous

wine it heretofore produc'd, and so rid onward the
Appian Way, beset with myrtils, lentiscus, bayes,
pomegranads, and whole groves of orange-trees, and
most delicious shrubbs, till we came to Formiana,
where they shew'd us Cicero's Tomb standing in an
olive grove, now a rude heap of stones, without forme
or beauty ; for here that incomparable Orator was
murther'd. I shall never forget how exceedingly I
was delighted with the sweetnesse of this passage, the
sepulcher mixed amongst all sorts of verdure.
 ON GARDENS 229

Adjoining to this (St. Maria in Navicula) are the

Horti Mathsei, which only of all the places about the
Citty I omitted visiting, tho' I was told inferiour to no
garden in Rome for statues, ancient monuments, aviaries,
fountaines, groves, and especialy a noble obelisq, and
maintain'd in beauty at the expense of 6000 crownes
yearely, which if not expended to keepe up its beauty
forfeits the possession of a greater revenue to another
family ; so curious are they in their villas and places of
pleasure, even to exccsse.

The gardens of Justinian, which we next visited,

are very full of statues and antiquities, especialy urnes,
amongst which is that of Min. Felix ; a Terminus
that formerly stood in the Appian Way, and a huge
colosse of the Emperor Justinian. There is a delicate
aviarie on the hill ; the whole gardens furnish'd with
rare collections, fresh, shady, and adorn'd with noble
fountaines.

After dinner we went again to see the Villa Bor-

ghesi, about a mile without the Cittie ; the garden is
rather a park or paradise, contriv'd and planted with
walkes and shades of myrtils, cypresse and other trees
230 JOHN EVELYN

and groves, with abundance of fountaines, statues, and

bass-relievos, and several pretty murmuring rivulets.
Here they had hung large netts to catch woodcocks.
There was also a F'ivarie, where amongst other exotic
fowles was an ostridge ; besides a most capacious
aviarie ; and in another inclosed part, an herd of
deere. Before the palace (which might become the
courte of a great prince) stands a noble fountaine of
white marble, inrich'd with statues.

We tooke coach, and went 1 5 miles out of the

Cittie to Frascati, formerly Tusculanum, a villa of
Cardinal Aldobrandini, built for a country-house, but
surpassing, in my opinion, the most delicious places I
ever beheld for its situation, elegance, plentifull water,
groves, ascents, and prospects. Just behind the palace
(which is of excellent architecture) in the center of
the inclosure rises an high hill or mountaine all over
clad with tall wood, and so form'd by nature as if it
had been cut out by art, from the sum'it whereof falls
a cascade, seeming rather a greate river than a streame
precipitating into a large theater of water, representing
an exact and perfect rainebow when the sun shines out.
Under this is made an artificiall grott, wherein are
 ON GARDENS 231

curious rocks, hydraulic organs, and all sorts of singing

birds moving and chirping by force of the water, with
severall other pageants and surprising inventions. In
the center of one of these roomes rises a coper ball that
continually daunces about 3 foote above the pavement
by virtue of a wind conveyed secretely to a hole
beneath it; with many other devices to wett the unwary
spectators, so that one can hardly step without wetting
to the skin. In one of these theaters of water is an
Atlas spouting up the streame to a very great height ;
and another monster makes a terrible roaring with an
horn ; but, above all, the representation of a storm is
most naturall, with such fury of raine, wind, and
thunder, as one would imagine ones self in some
extreame tempest. The garden has excellent walkes
and shady groves, abundance of rare fruit, oranges,
lemons, &c. and the goodly prospect of Rome, above
all description, so as I do not wonder that Cicero
and others have celebrated this place with such
encomiums.

Arriv'd at Tivoli we went first to see the Palace

d'Este erected on a plaine, but where was formerly an
hill. The palace is very ample and stately. In the
232 JOHN EVELYN

garden on the right hand are 16 vast conchas of

marble jetting out waters ; in the midst of these stands
a Janus quadrifrons, that cast forth 4 girandolas, call'd
from the resemblance [to a particular exhibition in
fireworks so namedj the Fontana di Speccho f_looking-
glassj. Neere this is a place for tilting. Before the
ascent of the palace is the famous fountaine of Leda,
and not far from that 4 sweete and delicious gardens.
Descending thence are two pyramids of water, and in
a grove of trees neere it the fountaines of Tethys,
Esculapius, Arethusa, Pandora, Pomona, and Flora ;
then the prancing Pegasus, Bacchus, the Grott of
Venus, the two Colosses of Melicerta, and Sibylla
Tibertina, all of exquisite marble, coper, and other
suitable adornements. The Cupids pouring out water
are especialy most rare, and the urnes on which are
plac'd the 10 nymphs. The Grotts are richly pav'd
with Pietra Commessa, shells, corall, &c.
Towards Roma Triumphans leades a long and
spacious walk, full of fountaines, under which is
historized the whole Ovidian Metamorphosis in rarely
sculptur'd mezzo relievo. At the end of this, next the
wall, is the Cittie of Rome as it was in its beauty, of
small models, representing that Cittie, with its Amphi-
theaters, Naumachia, Thermae, Temples, Arches, Aquc-
 ON GARDENS 233

ducts, Streetes, and other magnificences, with a litde

streame running thro' it for the Tyber, gushing out of
an urne next the statue of the river. In another garden
is a noble aviarie, the birds artificial, and singing till an
owle appeares, on which they suddainly change their
notes. Near this is the fountaine of Dragons casting
out large streames of water with great noises. In
another Grotto called Grotto di NaturcL, is an hydraulic
organ ; and below this are divers stews and fish-
pounds, in one of which is the statue of Neptune in
his chariot on a sea-horse, in another a Triton ; and
lasdy a garden of simples.

Taking leave of our two jolly companions Signor

Giovanni and his fellow, we tooke horses for Bologna,
and by the way alighted at a villa of the Grand Duke's
called Pratoline. The house is a square of 4 pavilions,
with a faire platform about it, baiustred with stone,
situate in a large meadow, ascending like an amphi-
theater, having at the bottom a huge rock with water
running in a small channell like a cascade ; on the
other side are the gardens. The whole place seems
consecrated to pleasure and summer retirement. The
inside of the place may compare with any in Italy for
23+ JOHN EVELYN

furniture of tapistry, beds, &c. and the gardens are

delicious and full of fountaines. In the grove sits Pan
feeding his flock, the water making a melodious sound
through his pipe ; and an Hercules whose club yields
a shower of water which falling into a greate shell
has a naked woman riding on the backs of dolphins.
In another grotto is Vulcan and his family, the walls
richly compos'd of corals, shells, coper, and marble
figures, with the hunting of severall beasts, moving by
the force of water. Here, having been well washed
for our curiosity, we went down a large walke, at the
sides whereof several slender streams of water gush
out of pipes concealed underneath, that interchangeably
fall into each others channells, making a lofty and
perfect arch, so that a man on horseback may ride
under it and not receive one drop of wet. This canopy
or arch of water, I thought one of the most surprising
magnificencies I had ever seene, and very refreshing
in the heate of the sum'er. At the end of this very
long walk stands a woman in white marble, in posture
of a laundress wringing water out of a piece of linen,
very naturally formed into a vast lavor, the work
and invention of M. Angelo Buonarotti. Hence we
ascended Mount Parnassus, where the Muses plaied to
us on hydraulic organs. Neere this is a greate aviarie.
 OX GARDENS 235

All these waters came from the rock in the garden, on

which is the statue of a gyant representing the Apen-
nines, at the foote of which stands this villa. Last of
all we came to the labyrinth in which a huge colosse
of Jupiter throws out a streame over the garden.
This is 50 foote in height, having in his body a square
chamber, his eyes and mouth serving for windows and
dore.

The next morning I went to see the Garden of

Simples (at Padua), rarely furnish'd with plants, and
gave order to the gardener to make me a collection
of them for an hortus hyemalis, by permission of the
Cavalier Dr. Vestlingius, who was then Prefect and
Botanic Professor as well as of Anatomic
Next morning the Earle of Arundel, now in this
Citty, a famou3 collector of paintings and antiquities,
invited me to go with him to see the Garden of
Mantua, where as one enters stands a huge colosse of
Hercules.

Count Ulmarini (at Vincenza) is more famous for

his gardens, being without the walls, especially his
Cedrario or Conserve of Oranges eleven score of my
236 JOHN EVELYN

paces long, set in order and ranges, making a canopy

all the way by their intermixing branches for more
than 200 of my single paces, and which being full of
fruite and blossoms was a most delicious sight. In the
middle of this garden was a cupola made of wyre,
supported by slender pillars of brick, so closely cover'd
with ivy, both without and within, that nothing was
to be perceived but greene ; 'twixt the arches there
dangled festoones of the same. Here is likewise a
most inextricable labyrinth.

In the evening we saw the garden of Count Giusti's

villa (at Verona), where are walkes cut out of the
maine rock, from whence we had the pleasant prospect
of Mantua and Parma, though at greate distance. At
the entrance of this garden growes the goodliest cypresse
I fancy in Europ, cut in pyramid ; 'tis a prodigious tree
both for breadth and height, entirely cover'd and thick
to the base.

Aug. 1649. Returning to Paris we went to see

the President Maison's Palace, built castle-wise of
a milk-white fine freestone ; the house not vast, but
well contriv'd,especialy thestaire-caseand the ornaments
 OX GARDENS 237

of Putti about it. 'Tis inviron'd in a dry raoate, the

offices under-ground, the gardens very excellent with
extraordinary long walkes set with elmes, and a noble
prospect towards the forest and on the Seine towards
Paris. Take it altogether, the meadows, walkes,
river, forest, corne-ground, and vineyards, I hardly
saw anything in Italy exceede it. The yron gates are
very magnificent. He has pulled downe a whole
village to make roome for his pleasure about it.

March 22, 1652. I went with my brother Evelyn

to Wotton to give him what directions I was able about
his garden, which he was now desirous to put into some
forme ; but for which he was to remove a mountaine
overgrowne with huge trees and thicket, with a moate
within 1 0 yards of the house. This my brother immedi-
ately attempted, and that without greate cost, for more
than an hundred yards South, by digging downe the
mountaine and flinging it into a rapid streame, it not onely
carried away the sand, &c. but filled up the moate, and
level'd that noble area, where now the garden and foun-
taine is. The first occasion of my brother making
this alteration was my building the little retiring place
betweene the greate wood Eastward next the meadow,
238 JOHN EVELYN

where sometime after my father's death I made a

triangular pond, or little stew, with an artificial rock
after my coming out of Flanders.

We went to see Penshurst, the Earl of Leicester's,

famous once for its gardens and excellent fruit, and for
the noble conversation which was wont to meete there,
celebrated by that illustrious person Sir Philip Sidney,
who had there compos'd divers of his pieces. It
stands in a park, is finely water 'd, and was now full of
company on the marriage of my old fellow collegiate
Mr. Robert Smith, who married my Lady Dorothy
Sidney widdow of the Earle of Sunderland.

17 Jan., 1653. I began to set out the ovall garden

at Sayes Court, which was before a rude orchard and
all the rest one intire field of 100 acres, without any
hedge, except the hither holly hedge joyning to the
bank of the mount walk. This was the beginning of
all the succeeding gardens, walks, groves, enclosures,
and plantations there.

May, 1654. I went to Hackney to see my Lady

Brook's garden, which was one of the neatest and most
 ON GARDENS 239

celebrated in England, the house well furnish'd, but a

despicable building. Returning, visited one Mr. Tombs's
garden; it has large and noble walks, some modern statues,
a vineyard, planted in strawberry borders, staked at
10 foote distances ; the banquetting-house of cedar,
where the couch and seates were carv'd a /'antique.

Hence we went to the Physick Garden (at Oxford),

where the sensitive plant was shew'd us for a greate
wonder. There grew canes, olive-trees, rhubarb, but
no extraordinary curiosities, besides very good fruit,
which when the Iadys had tasted, we return'd in our
coach to our lodgings.
We all din'd at that most obliging and universally-
curious Dr. Wilkins's, at Wadham College. He was
the first who shew'd me the transparent apiaries, which
he had built like casdes and palaces, and so order'd
them one upon another as to take the hony without
destroying the bees. These were adorn'd with a
variety of dials, little statues, vanes, &c. and he was so
aboundantly civil, as finding me pleas'd with them, to
present me with one of the hives which he had empty,
and which I afterwards had in my garden at Sayes
Court, where it continu'd many years, and which his
24o JOHN EVELYN

Majestie came on purpose to see and contemplate with

much satisfaction. He had also contriv'd an hollow
statue which gave a voice and utter'd words, by a long
conceal'd pipe that went to its mouth, whilst one speaks
through it at a good distance.

In the afternoone we went to Wilton, a fine house

of the Earl of Pembroke, in which the most observable
are the dining-roome in the modern built part towards
the garden, richly gilded and painted with story by
De Creete ; also some other apartments, as that of
hunting landskips by Pierce; some magnificent chimny-
pieces after the best French manner ; a paire of artificial
winding-stayres of stone, and divers rare pictures.
The garden, heretofore esteem'd the noblest in
England, is a large handsom plaine, with a grotto
and water-works, which might be made much more
pleasant were the river that passes through cleans'd
and rais'd, for all is effected by a meere force. It has
a flower garden not inelegant. But after all, that
which renders the seate delightful is its being so
neere the downes and noble plaines about the country
contiguous to it. The stables are well order'd and
yeild a gracefull front, by reason of the walkes of lime-
 OX GARDENS 241

trees, with the court and fountaine of the stables adorn'd

with the Caesar's heads.

I went to Box-hill to see those rare natural bowers,

cabinets, and shady walkes in the box-copses : hence
we walk'd to Mickleham, and saw Sir F. Stidolph's
seate environ'd with elme-trees and walnuts innumer-
able, and of which last he told us they receiv'd a
considerable revenue. Here are such goodly walkes
and hills shaded with yew and box as render the place
extreamely agreeable, it seeming from these ever-greens
to be summer all the winter.

9 Aug., 1 66 1. I first saw the famous Queen's Pine l

brought from Barbados and presented to his Majestie ;
but the first that were ever seen in England were those
sent to Cromwell foure years since.

June, 1662. The park (at Hampton Court) formerly

a flat naked piece of ground, now planted with sweete
rows of lime-trees ; and the canall for water now neere
1 At Kensington Palace is a curious picture of King
Charles receiving a pine apple from his gardener Mr. Rose,
who is presenting it on his knees.
R
242 JOHN EVELYN

perfected ; also the hare park. In the garden is a rich

and noble fountaine, with syrens, statues, &c. cast in
copper by Fanelli, but no plenty of water. The cradle-
walk of home beame in the garden is, for the perplexed
twining of the trees, very observable. There is a parterre
which they call Paradise, in which is a pretty banquetting-
house set over a cave or cellar. All these gardens might
be exceedingly improved, as being too narrow for such
a palace.

Next to Wadham, and the Physick Garden, where

were two large locust trees, and as many platana, and
some rare plants under the culture of old Bobart.1

1666. There stand in the Garden (of Nonesuch) two

handsome stone pyramids, and the avenue planted with
rows of faire elmes, but the rest of these goodly trees,
1 Jacob Bobart, a German, was appointed the first keeper
of the Physic Garden at Oxford. There is a fine print of
him after Loggan by Burghers, dated 1675. Also a small
whole length in the frontispiece of Vertumnus, a poem on
that garden. In this he is dressed in a long vest, with a
beard. His descendants were still in Oxford in Loudon's
time. He died in his Garden-house, 4 Feb., 1679 (Anth.
Wood).
 ON GARDENS 243

both of this and of Worcester Park, adjoyning, were

fell'd by those destructive and avaricious rebells in the
late warr, which defac'd one of the stateliest seates his
Majesty had.

To Alburie to see how that garden proceeded,

which I found exactly don to the designe and plot I
had made, with the crypta through the mountaine in
the park, 30 perches in length. Such a Pausilippe l
is no where in England besides. The canall was now
digging, and the vineyard planted.

His house (Lord Arlington's at Euston) is a very

noble pile, consisting of 4 pavillions after the French,
beside a body of a large house, and tho' not built
altogether, but forra'd of additions to an old house
(purchas'd by his Lordship of one Sir T. Rookwood)
yet with a vast expence made not onely capable and
roomesome, but very magnificent and commodious, as
well within as without, nor lesse splendidly furnish'd.
The stayre-case is very elegant, the garden handsome,
the canall beautifull, but the soile drie, barren and
1 A word adopted by Mr. Evelyn for a subterranean
passage, from the famous grotto of Pausylippo, at Naples.
244 JOHN EVELYN
miserably sandy, which flies in drifts as the wind sits.
Here my Lord was pleas'd to advise with me about
ordering his plantations of firs, elmes, limes, &c. up
his parke, and in all other places and avenues. I
persuaded him to bring his park so neere as to compre-
hend his house within it, which he resolv'd upon, it
being now neere a mile to it. The water furnishing
the fountaines is raised by a pretty engine, on very
slight plaine wheels, which likewise serve to grind his
come, from a small cascade of the canall, the invention
of Sir Sam. Moreland.

17 Oct., 167 1. Next morning I went to see Sir Tho.

Browne (with whom I had some time corresponded by
letter, tho' I had never seen him before). His whole
house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities,
and that of the best collection, especialy medails, books,
plants, and natural things. Amongst other curiosities
Sir Thomas had a collection of the eggs of all the
foule and birds he could procure, that country (especialy
the promontary of Norfolck) being frequented, as he
said, by severall kinds which seldome or never go
farther into the land, as cranes, storkes, eagles, and
variety of watcr-foule.
 ON GARDENS 245

For the rest, the fore court (at Lord John Berkeley's,
of Stratton) is noble, so are the stables, and above all,
the gardens, which are incomparable by reason of the
inequalitie of the ground, and a pretty piscina. The
holly hedges on the terrace I advised the planting of.
The porticoes are in imitation of an house described by
Palladio, but it happens to be the worst in his booke,
tho' my good
architect, friend
effected it. Mr. Hugh May, his Lordship's

3 Jan., 1673. My sonn now published his version

of ' Rapinus Hortorum.' l

29 April, 1675. I read my first discourse « Of

Earth and Vegetation,' before the Royall
a lecture in course after Sir Rob. Southwell Society, as
had read
his the weeke before On Water. I was commanded
by our President and the suffrage of the Society to
print it.

10 Sep., 1677. The orange garden (at Euston) is

1 Of Gardens. Four Books. First written in Latin Terse,
by Renatus Rapinus, and now made English. By I. e!
London, 1673. Dedicated to Henry Earle of Arlington, &c.
246 JOHN EVELYN

very fine, and leads into the green-house, at the end of

which is a hall to eate in, and the conservatory some
hundred feete long, adorn'd with mapps, as the other
side is with the heads of Caesars ill cut in alabaster :
over head are several apartments for my Lord, Lady,
and Dutchesse, with kitchens and other offices below in
a lesser form, with lodgings for servants, all distinct, for
them to retire to when they please and would be in
private and have no communication with the palace,
which he tells me he will wholly resign to his sonn-in-
law and daughter, that charming young creature. The
canall running under my lady's dressing-room chamber
window is full of carps and foule which come and are
fed there. The cascade at the end of the canall turnes
a corne-mill, which provides the family, and raises
water for the fountaines and offices. To passe this
canal into the opposite meadows, Sir Sam. Moreland
has invented a screw-bridge, which being turn'd with
a key lands you 50 foote distant at the entrance of an
ascending walke of trees, a mile in length, as tis also
on the front into the park, of 4 rows of ash-trees, and
reaches to the park-pale, which is 9 miles in compass,
and the best for riding and meeting the game that
I ever saw.
 ON GARDENS 247

27 Aug., 1678. I tooke leave of the Duke, and

din'd at Mr. Hen. Brouncker's, at the Abby of
Sheene, formerly a monastery of Carthusians, there yet
remaining one of their solitary cells with a crosse.
Within this ample inclosure are several pretty villas
and fine gardens of the most excellent fruites, espe-
cialy Sir William Temple's (lately Ambassador into
Holland), and the Lord L isle's, sonn to the Earle of
Leicester, who has divers rare pictures, and above all,
that of Sir Brian Tuke's by Holbein.
After dinner I walk'd to Ham, to see the house
and garden of the Duke of Lauderdale, which is
indeede inferior to few of the best villas in Italy
itselfe ; the house furnish'd like a greate Prince's ; the
parterres, flower gardens, orangeries, groves, avenues,
courts, statues, perspectives, fountaines, aviaries, and all
this at the banks of the sweetest river in the world,
must needes be admirable.
Hence I went to my worthy friend Sir Henry Capet
[at Kew] brother to the Earle of Essex : it is an old
timber house, but his garden has the choicest fruit of
any plantation in England, as he is the most industrious
and understanding in it.
248 JOHN EVELYN

1 8 April, 1680. On the earnest invitation of the

Earle of Essex I went with him to his house at
Cashioberie, in Hartford-shire. . . .
No man has ben more industrious than this noble
Lord in planting about his seate, adorn'd with walkes,
ponds, and other rural elegancies ; but the soile is stonie,
churlish, and uneven, nor is the water neere enough to
the house, tho' a very swift and cleare stream runs
within a flight shot from it in the vally, which may
fitly be call'd Coldbrook, it being indeede excessive
cold, yet producing faire troutes. 'Tis pitty the house
was not situated to more advantage, but it seemes it
was built just where the old one was, which I be-
lieve he onely meant to repaire ; this leads men into
irremediable errors, and it saves but a very little.
The land about it is exceedingly addicted to wood,
but the coldnesse of the place hinders the growth.
Black cherry-trees prosper even to considerable timber,
some being 80 foote long ; they make also very hand-
some avenues. There is a pretty oval at the end of
a faire walke, set about with treble rows of Spanish
chesnut trees.
The gardens are very rare, and cannot be otherwise,
having so skillful an artist to govern them as Mr.
Cooke, who is, as to the mechanic part, not ignorant
 ON GARDENS 249

in Mathematics, and pretends to Astrologie. There

is an excellent collection of the choicest fruit.

30 Aug., 1 68 1. From Wotton I went to see Mr.

Hussey (at Sutton in Shere), who has a very pretty seate
well water'd, neere my brother's. He is the neatest
husband for curious ordering his domestic and field
accommodations, and what pertains to husbandry, that I
have ever seene, as to his granaries, tacklings, tooles, and
utensills, ploughs, carts, stables, wood-piles, wood-house,
even to hen-roosts and hog-troughs. Methought I saw
old Cato or Varro in him ; all substantial, all in exact
order. The sole inconvenience he lies under, is the greate
quantity of sand which the streame brings along with it,
and fills his canals and receptacles for fish too soone.
The rest of my time of stay at Wotton was spent in
walking about the grounds and goodly woods, where I
have in my youth so often entertain'd my solitude :
and so on the 2d of Sept. I once more returned to
my home.

30 Oct., 1682. Being my birthday, and I now

entering my greate climacterical of 63, after serious
recollections of the yeares past, giving Almighty God
2So JOHN EVELYN

thanks for all his mercifull preservations and forbear-

ance, begging pardon for my sinns and unworthinesse,
and his blessing and mercy on me the yeare entering,
I went with my Lady Fox to survey her building,
and give some directions for the garden at Chiswick ;
the architect is Mr. May ; somewhat heavy and thick
and not so well understood ; the garden much too
narrow, the place without water, neere an highway,
and neere another greate house of my Lord Burlington,
little land about it, so that I wonder at the expence ;
but women will have their will.

I went to Windsor, dining by the way at Chesewick

(Chiswick), at Sir Stephen Fox's, where I found Sir
Robert Howard (that universal pretender), and Signor
Verrip, who brought his draught and designs for the
painting of the staire-case of Sir Stephen's new house.
. . . There was now the terrace brought almost round the
old Castle ; the grass made cleane, even, and curiously
turf 'd ; the avenues to the new park, and other walkes,
planted with elmes and limes, and a pretty canal, and
receptacle for fowle ; nor lesse observable and famous is
the throwing so huge a quantity of excellent water to
the enormous height of the Castle, for the use of the
 ON GARDENS 251

whole house, by an extraordinary invention of Sir

Samuel Morland.

I went to Kew to visite Sir Hen. Capell, brother

to the late Earle of Essex ; but he being gone to
Cashioberry, after I had seene his garden and the
alterations therein, I return'd home. He had repair'd
his house, roof'd his hall with a kind of cupola, and
in a niche was an artificial fountaine ; but the roome
seems to me over melancholy, yet might be much
improv'd by having the walls well painted a fresca.
The two greene houses for oranges and mirtles com-
municating with the roomes below, are very well
contriv'd. There is a cupola made with pole-work
betweene two elmes at the end of a walk, which being
cover'd by plashing the trees to them, is very pretty :
for the rest there are too many fir trees in the garden.

12 June, 1684. I went to advise and give direc-

tions about the building two streetes in Berkeley
Gardens, reserving the house and as much of the
garden as the breadth of the house. In the meane
time I could not but deplore that sweete place (by far
the most noble gardens, courts, and accommodations.
 252 JOHN EVELYN

I stately porticos, &c. any where about the towne)

: should be so much straighten'd and turn'd into tene-
ments. But that magnificent pile and gardens con-
tiguous to it, built by the late Lord Chancellor
Clarendon, being all demolish'd, and design'd for
Piazzas and buildings, was some excuse for my Lady
Berkeley's resolution of letting out her ground also for
: »o excessive a price as was offer'd, advancing neere
£ I ooo per ann. in mere ground rents ; to such a made
intemperance was the age come of building about a
citty, by far too disproportionate already to the nation;
I having in my time seene it almost as large again as it
was within my memory.

7 Aug., 1685. I went to see Mr. Wats, keeper of

the Apothecaries Garden of Simples at Chelsea, where
there is a collection of innumerable rarities of that sort
particularly, besides many rare annuals, the tree bearing
Jesuits bark, which had don such wonders in quartan
agues. What was very ingenious was the subterranean
heate, conveyed by a stove under the conservatory, which
was all vaulted with brick, so as he has the doores
and windowes open in the hardest frosts, secluding
only the snow.
 OX GARDENS 255

I accompanied my Lady Clarendon to her house at

Swallowfield in Berks, dining by the way at Mr.
Graham's lodge at Bagshot ; the house, new repair'd
and capacious enough for a good family, stands in a
Park.
Hence we went to Swallowfield ; this house is after
the antient building of honourable gentlemen's houses,
when they kept up antient hospitality, but the gardens
and waters as elegant as 'tis possible to make a flat, by
art and industrie, and no meane expence, my lady
being so extraordinarily skill'd in the flowery part, and
my lord in diligence of planting ; so that I have hardly
seene a seate which shews more tokens of it than what
is to be found here, not only in the delicious and rarest
fruits of a garden, but in those innumerable timber trees
in the ground about the seate, to the greatest ornament
and benefit of the place. There is one orchard of
1000 golden, and other cider pippins; walks and
groves of elms, limes, oaks, and other trees. The
garden is so beset with all manners of sweet shrubbs,
that it perfumes the aire. The distribution also of the
quarters, walks, and parterres, is excellent. The nur-
series, kitchin garden full of the most desireable plants ;
two very noble Orangeries well furnished ; but above
all, the canall and fishponds, the one fed with a white,
254 JOHN EVELYN

the other with a black running water, fed by a quick and

swift river, so well and plentifully stor'd with fish, that
for pike, carp, breame and tench, I never saw any thing
approching it. We had at every meale carp and pike
of size fit for the table of a Prince, and what added to
the delight was to see the hundreds taken by the drag,
out of which, the cooke standing by, we pointed out
what we had most mind to, and had carp that would
have ben worth at London twenty shillings a piece.
The waters are flagg'd about with Calamus aromaticus,
with which my lady has hung a closet, that retains
the smell very perfectly. There is also a certain
sweete willow and other exotics : also a very fine
bowling-greene, meadow, pasture, and wood ; in a
word, all that can render a country seate delight-
ful. There is besides a well furnish'd library in the
house.

24 Mar., 1688. I went with Sir Charles Littleton

to Sheene, an house and estate given him by Lord
Brouncker. . . .
After dinner we went to see Sir William Temple's
neere to it ; the most remarkable things are his
orangerie and gardens, where the wall fruit trees are
 ON GARDENS 255

most exquisitely naiJ'd and train'd, far better than I

ever noted elsewhere.
There are many good pictures, especialy of Van-
dyke's, inboth these houses, and some few statues and
small busts in the latter.
From thence we went to Kew, to visite Sir Henry
Capell's, whose orangerie and myrtelum are most
beautifull and perfectly well kept. He was contriving
very high palisados of reeds to shade his oranges
during the summer, and painting those reeds in oil.

13 July, 1700. I went to Marden, which was

originally a barren warren bought by Sir Robert Clayton,
who built there a pretty house, and made such alteration
by planting not only an infinite store of the best fruite,
but so chang'd the natural situation of the hill, valleys
and solitary mountains about it, that it rather represented
some foreign country which would produce spon-
taneously pines, firs, cypress, yew, hollv, and juniper ;
they were come to their perfect growth, with walks,
mazes, &c. amongst them, and were preserv'd with
the utmost care, so that I who had seene it some
yeares before in its naked and barren condition, was
in admiration of it.
256 JOHN EVELYN ON GARDENS

31 Oct., 1705. I am this day arriv'd to the 85th

year of my age. Lord, teach me so to number my
days to come that I may apply them to wisdom.

John Evelyn died on Feb. 27, 1706 : more than the

majority of men, he had all through his long life
applied his days to wisdom.

Finis
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
131, 138. Alpinus, Prosper, b. 1553 at Marostica, state of
Venice. 1580, followed the Consul George Ems, sent by
the Republic to Egypt. The first European to see, at Cairo,
and describe the coffee plant ; he made better known the
famous Balsamum of the Ancients. 1584, Doria, Prince of
Amalfi, the Commander, appointed him Physician to the
Fleet of Spain. Professor of Botany to the University of
Padua, and enriched its garden with the plants brought
from Egypt; d. at Padua, 1617. Chief works : De Medicina
JEgyptiorum, lib. iv.; De Bahama Dialogus ; De Plantis Egyptii ;
De Plantis Exoticis. (Biog. Univers.)
129. Anguillara, Aluigi. Date and place of birth un-
certain ;travelled over the whole of Italy, Dalmatia, Illyria,
Slavonia, Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, Crete and Corfu.
He botanised round Bologna in 1539, Pisa 1544 and 1545,
and was a friend or pupil of Luca Ghini, whom he calls
"Maestro" (see Biog. Universelle, torn, ii., art. by Du
Petit Thouars). Author of Semplici, edited by Giovanni
Marinello - Vinegia, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1561 — a Latin
translation with notes, by C. Bauhin. Basle, 1593.
89. Bauhin, Caspar, b. at Basle 1550, d. 1624, studied under
Fuchs ; collected plants in Switzerland, Italy and France ;
Professor at Basle, 1580 Greek, 1589 Botany (see Haller
and Sprengel). Works : Pinax and Prodromus Theatri Botanki
(1620): fully distinguishes between Species and Genus; the
description of a single species is developed into an art and
becomes a diagnosis (Sachs). His Herbarium is still pre-
served at Basle (Meyer, iv. 267). Linnzus gave name
Bauhinia to genus of Leguminosa:. Conrad Gesner's letters
to Bauhin were edited by the latter. Basilex, 1594. 8vo.
Bauhin, Johann, b. at Basle 1541, studied medicine
257 S
258 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
under father, a Protestant exile from France ; travelled in
Italy, Alps and south of France collecting Historia Plantarum,
published 1650, 37 years after his death (3 vols., fol.),
describes 5,000 plants in 40 classes — the first attempt at
Systematic Botany (Sachs).
147. Buxtorfius, Johannes, b. 1564 in Westphalia;
Orientalist ; Professor of Hebrew and Chaldaic at Basle,
where he died 1629. Works : Lexicon Chaldaicum Thalmudicum
et Rabbinkum ; Hebrew Bible with Rabbi, and Chaldc. Para-
phrasesVia
; Massora ; Hebrew and Chaldc. Dicty. and H.
Grammar ; Synagoga Judaica (Colin, of Modes and Cere-
monies), Biblioth. Rabbinica, &c.
180. Camerarius, Rudolf Jacob, b. at Tubingen, 1665-
1721. 1685, travelled two years over Europe; "the true
discoverer of sexuality in plants" (Sachs). 1688, Professor
and Director of Botanic Garden in Tubingen. 1695, suc-
ceeded his father as First Professor of University. Author
of De Sexu Plantarum Epistola (1694), R. J. Camerarii opuscula
Botanici Argument!, J. C. Mikan, ed. Prague, 1797.
141. Cesalpino, Andrea (Ceesalpinus), b. at Arezzo 1519,
d. 1603. First physician to Clement VIII.; pupil of Ghini
and Professor at Pisa. Works : Speculum artis mcdica Hippo-
craticum ; De Plantis Libri xvi., Florence 1583, 4to. ; De
Metallicit, libri tres, Rome, 1596, 4to. ; Praxis universis medi-
cina ; Qiiastionum peripateticarum Libri quinque, Venice, 1596,
4to. Cesalpino's first book, De Plantis, " contains a full and
connected exposition of the whole of Theoretical Botany.
. . . The Doctrine of Metamorphosis appears in a more
consistent and necessary form in Cesalpino than in the
Botanists of the 19th Century before Darwin " (Sachs's Hitt.
ofBot.).

183. Clusius, Carolus (Charles De I'Escluse), b. at Arras,

 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 259
Flanders, 1526 ; lived chiefly in Germany and Netherlands to
avoid religious persecution. 1573, invited by Maxn. II. to
Vienna and made superintendent of Royal Gardens. 1593,
Professor at Leyden, where he died (1609), 84 years old.
Translated Dodonzus's Cruydcbocck into French 1557. 1563-4,
travelled with Graf Fugger in France, Belgium, Spain and
Portugal. 1 57 1, visited London ; a friend of Drake. " None
of his predecessors or contemporaries has more enriched
Botany with new discoveries " (Meyer, iv.). Works :
1. Caroli Clusii Atrebatis variorum aliquot stirpium per
Hispanias observatarum Historia. Antwerp. Plantin, 1576.
8vo. 299 Woodcuts.
2. Rariorum aliquot* Stirpium per Paunoniam Austriam
. . Historia, IV. Books. Antwerp, Christ. Plantin, 1583.
8vo. 364 Woodcuts.
3. Rariarum Plantarum Historia. Antwerp. Moretus,
1601. Folio.
4. Exoticorum Libri Decern. Ex off. Plant. 1605, folio.
5. Curae Posteriores. 1611. 4to.
129. Cordus, Euricius, b. i486 in Hess (father of Valerius
Cordus, b. 1515); correspondent of Erasmus; studied
Medicine at Ferrara, 1527; became Professor of Med. at
Marburg ; translated Alexipharmaka and Theriaka of
Nikandros into Latin verse, and wrote his book in German
on Theriak, 1532 ; his Botanilogicon, published at Cologne
in 1534; d. 1538 at Bremen (Meyer).
Cordus, Valerius, b. 1515 ; studied at Wittenberg 1535;
his "Dispensatorium Pharmacorum Omnium" at Nurem-
berg. 1542, visited Padua, Ferrara and Bologna. Caught
fever and died at Rome 1544, set. 29. Works: " Annota-
tions ad Dioscoridem," published 5 years after his death,
as appendix to the translation of Ruellius. Frankfort,
z6o BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Christ. Egenolph, 1549, fol. 2nd edition, with Historiae
Stirpium (Lib. III.), Sylva, De Artificiosis Extractionibus
and Compositiones medicinales (the same volume also con-
tained Conrad Gesner's De Hortis Germanic, he editing the
work); Argentorati (Strasburg), Jos. Rihelius, 1561. Fol.
(2nd ed., 1563).
98, 144. Curtius, Benedictus Symphorianus, author of
Hortorum Libri xxx. Lugduni, 1560. Folio.
143. Diodati, Giovanni, b. Lucca, c. 1576. Protestant,
at age of 21 Professor of Hebrew at Geneva and (1619)
represented Clergy of Geneva at Synod of Dort; appointed
one of six to draw up Belgic Confession of Faith ; translated
Bible into Italian and French, and Father Paul's History of
Council of Trent into French ; d. 1649 at Geneva.
89, 120, etc. Dioscorides, Pedacius (or Pedanius). Greek
writer on Materia Medica, b. at Anazarbus in Cicilia, and
lived in reign of Nero. Travelled in Greece, Italy, Asia
Minor and Gaul, and collected plants and information
(especially as to Indian medical plants), from which he
compiled his work on "Materia Medica" in 5 books, in
which 500 to 600 plants are described. For sixteen centuries
(to beginning of 17th century) this work was the authority
on Botany and the Virtues of Plants ; most celebrated MS.
of Dioscorides, the " Cantacuzene Codex" (quoted by
Mathiolus), is at Vienna, some of figures inserted by
Dodoens in Historia Stirpium, an MS. of 9th century in
Paris, used by Salmasius, has Arabic and Coptic names.
Edit. Princeps. published by Aldus, Venice, 1499, fol.
Paris, 1549, 8vo. Frankfurt, 1598, fol. Almost every
herbalist and botanist of note, especially Mathiolus, has
made commentaries upon Dioscorides. Last edition of
Greek text by Sprengel (Leipsic, Kiihn, 1899, 8vo.), also
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 261

Sibthorp — the highest critical authority — his work embodied

by Sir J. E. Smith in Prodromui Flora Graeme and Flora Grteca.
In the 5th century the Nestorians established their schools
of Medicine among the Arabs (Dr. Royle, Ch. Knight's
Cycl. of Biog.).
Hartlib, Saml'ei, (p. xt of Introduction). Sir Ernest
Clarke, in his Cambridge Lectures on "The History of
Agriculture" (1897-9), has proved that the work published
by Samuel Hartlib in 1651, under the title of "Legacy of
Husbandry," was written entirely (except 3 pp.) by Robert
Child of Corpus College, Cambridge.
185. Herrera, Gabriel Alonso, a native of Talavera,
Spain's great Agronome and Agricultural writer, called the
New Columella, flourished 2nd half of 15th and beginning of
16th century. Professor at the University of Salamanca, he
published, under patronage of Cardinal Cisneros, Obra de
Agricultura Copilada de Diversos Autores, fol., Alcala, 15 1 3
(black letter). Twenty-eight imperfect editions followed till
the Sociedad Economica Matritense restored the text in their
Agricultura General Corregida y Adicionada, 4 vols. 4-to.,
Madrid, 1818. (Knight's Cycl. cf Biog.)
128. Hestchtos, Grammarian of Alexandria, c. 4th century
a.d. (most learned of all ancient critics (Casaubon) ; author
of Greek Lexicon ; possibly a Christian. Eds. Alberti and
Ruhnken, 2 vols. , fol. Lug. Bat. 1746-66; Schmidt Sup-
p
plem. 1857-64 (Sax. Onom., I., p. 464; Fabr. B. Gr. 4

i
c- 37)-
129. De L'Obel (Lobelius), Matthias, b. at Lille 1538 ;
studied Medicine under Rondeletius at Montpellier ; practised
t Antwerp and Delft; physician to Statthalter, William of
Orange, after whose death in 1584 he settled for life in
England, which he had probably visited already. His Patron
262 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

was Lord Zouch, wnose Gardens at Hackney he super-

intended, and whom he accompanied in 1598 when Ambas-
sador to Copenhagen. James I. made him Royal Botanist.
Died 1616, aged 78, at Highgate (see Meyer, iv., and Rd.
Pulteney's Sketches of History of Botany). Works :
1. Stirpium Adversaria nova, in collaboration with Petrus
Pena, Lond. 1570, 4to, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth ;
other editions 1571 and 1572; then enlarged at Antwerp,
Christ. Plantin, 1576, folio ; 6 editions at Leyden, Frankfurt
and London before 165 1.
2. Dilucidae Simplicium Medicamentorum Explicationes
et Stirpium, &c. Lond. 1605. Fol.
3. Plantarum Sex Stirpium Historia. Antwerp, Ch.
Plantin, 1576. Fol.
4. Kruydtboeck. Antwerp, Plantin, 1581. Fol. Parti.,
1619, Woodcuts. Part II.
5. Stirpium Illustrationes (left unfinished by Lobel.
Parkinson used part of it, without permission). Edited by
Wm. How, London, 1655. 4to.
144: Maimonides {Moses Ben Maimon Ben Joseph), b
Cordova, c. 1131-9. Arab and Jewish Physician and Philo-
sopher, Theologian and Expounder of Law. In 15th cent,
his books, translated from Arab, and Hebrew, widely
read in Latin: "Guide of Erring," Compendium of Logic;
Commenty. on Mishna, and Exposn. of 613 Laws of Moses.
Translated Avicenna's Canon into Hebrew ; wrote in prose
Hebrew Mishne Thora, or lad Chasaka = The Work — a
complete system in 982 chapters of the Talmudic Judaism,
d. 1201-9, buried in Palestine.
MaTTIOLI, Pierandre {Petrus Andreas Matthiolus), b. at
Siena 1501. Physician at Court of Ferdinand I. His Herbal
(in interests of Medicine rather than Botany) is a Com-
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 263
mentary on Dioscorides ; first Italian edition 1544 (Venice);
Latin 1554, with Woodcuts; 1562, Bohemian and German
(Prague), translated by Georg Handsch(with larger illustra-
tions). French translation, by Antoine du Pinet (Lyons :
Gabr. Cotier, 2nd edn. 1566). Opera Matthioli, by Caspar
Bauhin. Basle, 1598. Fol. His Commentary went through
more than 60 editions, d. 1577. (Tiraboschi and Meyer, iv.)
98. Porta, Giambattista, b. at Naples, c. 1539. 155^, his
(1) Magia Naturalis appeared. English translation, London,
1658, fol., quoted without acknowledgment by Bacon.
Friend of Cardinal Luigi d'Este ; founded an Academia de'
Segretti in his house at Naples. Pope Paul V. summoned
him to Rome, and suppressed his Academy. He was the
creature of the Doctrine of Signatures in scientific form ; he
leant too much to the secret, mysterious, superstitious side
of things, d. 1615. (Meyer iv., 438-444.)
2. De Furtivis Literarum Notis, vulgo de Ziferis.
3. De Distillatione. Rome, 1608.
4. De Aeris Transmutationibus, libri quatuor. Naples,
1609.
5. Phytognomica octo libris contenta (on plants, animals,
metals). Naples, 1588. Fol. Woodcuts. De humana phy-
siognomia (anticipation of Lavater).
6. Villa?, libri xii. Frankfurt, 1592. 4to. Naples, 1583.
4to.
7. Pomarium (imperfect).
190, 245. Rapinus, Renatus (Rene Rapin). A French
Jesuit Father, Latin Poet, Critic and Theologian, b. 1621
at Tours, d. 1687. His Hortorum Libri iv. (Paris, 1665,
4to.) — reprinted, with improvements, 1666, i2mo., and
edited by Brotier (1780, i2mo.) — was twice translated into
English verse, by John Evelyn, Jr., London 1673, 8vo. , and
264 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
by James Gardiner, Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge,
8vo. , 1706, Cambridge.
142. Largus, Scribonius, physician in age of Augustus
and Tiberius ; wrote de Compositione Medicamentorum liber
jam pridem Io. Ruellii opera e tenebris erutus, &c. Basilise
apud Andream Cratandrum, 1529. 8vo. (Brunet, Meyer
iv., p. 251 (Ruellius).)

xvi (Introduction). The full title of Swift's " Battle of the

Books " is, "An Account of a Battel Between the Antient
and Modern Books in St. James's Library."
 INDEX
Aaron, 104, 115, 142. Antwerp, aor.
Abdachim, 138. Apennines, 235.
Abdella, 138. Apocalypse, 117.
Abydenus, 99. Apollonius, 128.
Acetaria, 173 «. Apples, 47-48.
Achilles Statius, 182. Golden Pippin, 47.
Achmetes, 116. Kentish Pippin, 47.
Adam, 21, 115. Apricots, 47.
Brussels, 47.
Adominus, Gardens of, 178. Masculin, 47.
Adonidis, 178.
Adrian, 124. Apuleia, 124.
^Egineta, 147. Arabia, 120, 138-139, 178.
Egyptians, 101. Arabians, 131, 138.
jElian, 179. Aranxues, 180.
JElias Spartianus, 179. Arceuil, 214.
/Etius, 147. Archimedes, 106.
Africanus, Scipio, 179. Ardebil, 181.
Agrippa, 18. Arias Montanus, 127.
Agrippina, 179. Aristotle, n, 100, 117, 146.
Ahasuerus, 90-97. Arlington, Lord, 243, 245.
Albury, 243. Armenia, 27.
Alcinous, 24, 178. Arsacia, 181.
Artaxerxes, 97.
Aldobrandino, 179, 225-226.
Alexander, 21, 106, 126, 178. Artemidorus, 116.
Alexandria, 27, 178. Arundel, Earl of, 235.
Alpinus, 125, 131, 138, 257. Ascalon, 121.
Assyria, 25, 33, 34.
America, 89, 112, 154, 157, 1S1.
Amos, 119, 132. Athenaeus, 127, 129, 152, rs4, 178
Amsterdam, 180.
Anet, 180. 170. ig, 178.
Athens,
Angelo, M., 234. Atticas, 16, 17.
Anguillara, 129, 257. Augustus, 7, 18.
Anjou, 48. Azcapuzulco, 181.
Anth. Wood, 242 n.
Antoninus, 10, 179. Babylon, 22, 95, 99, 106, 126, 178.

26;
>.66 INDEX
Bacon, Francis, 190, 221, 261. Burghers, 242 ».
Nicholas, 89, 113 *. Burg^hesean, 179.
Bagshot, 253. Burlington, Lord, 250.
Baiae, 179. Buxtorfius, 147, 258.
Barbados, 241.
Barbcrini, 179. Caesar, 16.
Basil, 180. Caesalpinus, 141, 258.
Bastille, 203. Cairo, 138.
Bauhin, 89 «., 129, 257. Calendarium Hortense, 7o«., 184.
Bedford, Countess of, 50. Caligula,
Callot, 217.8.
Bellevue, 180.
Bellonius, 119, 120, 132. Camerarius, 180, 258.
Belvedere, 179, 206, 227. Campo Marzo, 222.
Berkeley, Lady, a ■>.. Canticles, 107, 128, 129.
— Lord, 245. Capel, Sir H., 247, 251, 255.
Gardens, 251. Capraroula, 180.
Berks., 253. Cardinal, Palais, 180.
Bernier, 23. Carthage, 27, 181.
Beugensor, 180. Cashiobury, 248, 251.
Beza, 146. Caspian Sea, 181.
Bisnaguer, 157. Cassipedis, 179.
Blois, 219, 220. Cassuin, 181.
Blyth, Walter, 192. Caterus, 180.
Bois de Vincennes, 203. Cato, 26, 90, 179, 191, 249.
Bologna, 180, 233. Cauigny, 180.
Bonne, 181. Chaldee, 140.
Bopart, 242 and n, Champagne, 180.
Borghtse, 224. Chan,
Charles The, 181.
Cardinal, 225. V., II.,
209. 39.
Borneo, 121.
Bosco, 186. King, 241 n.
Bossius, 179. Chasimir, 23.
Box Hill, 241. Chelsea, 252.
Brache, Tico, 181. Chevereuse, 218.
Brazil, 181. China, 121, 153, 181.
Brook, Lady, 238. Chinese, 53, 54, 157.
Lord, 181. Christina, 181.
Brouncker, Mr. Hen., 247. Chronicles, 132 «.
— Lord, 254. Cicero, 179, 228.
Browne, Sir T., 176, 244. Clarendon, Lady, 185, 253.
Lord, 252.
Evelyn's Letter to, 173-182. Clayton, Sir R., 255.
Garden 0/ Cyrus, 89-112. Clement VIII., 179.
Miscellanies, 113-162.
Cleopatria, 124, 137.
Of Garlands, 151-157.
Clusius, 183, 258.
On Graf tine:, 158-162. Coldbrook, 248.
Plants in Scripture, 113-150.
Vulgar Errours, 176. Cologne, 181.
Brussells, 180, 201, 202. Columella, 191.
 INDEX
Como, 1 So. Eden, 21.
Condi, 218. Egyp'i I0Ii I2I> I25> I3Ii 133>
Constantine, 179.
Cooke, Mr., 248. 154.. 178.
Elias, 139. 101, 151.
Egyptians,
Copenhagen, 181.
Cordus, 129, 258, 259. Elysian Fields, 178.
Corfu, 124. Elysium Brittannicum, 173 *.,
Corinth, 152. 175-
Emanuel de Sa, 147.
Cornelius' Gardens, 179.
Coronary Garden, 173 if. England, 36, 37, 39, 46.
Couranet, 180. Epicureans, 12, 14, 15.
Cowley, 186. Epicurus, the Gardens of, 3-65,
The Garden, 69-83. ii, 19, 20, 76, 178.
Cracovia, 181. Epire, 27.
Cromwell, 241. Esquiline, 179.
Cuma, 179. Essex, Earl, 247, 248, 251.
Curtius de Hortis, 93, 99, 144, 259. Essonne, 180.
Cusco, 181. Europe, 53.
Eusebius, 99.
Cyprus, 120, 127. Eustachius, 99.
Cyrus, 21, 96, 97, 173.
Euston, 243, 245.
Damascus, 23, 25, 27, 31. Evelyn, George, 181, 237.
Dampien, 180. John, 69 ; Acetaria, 173
Daniel, 126. n. ; Elysium Brittannicum,
David, 132, 139. 173 «., 175 ; KaL Hortense, 70,
Darwin, E., 90 n. 113 »., 151 «., 156 n., 158 n. ;
De Creete, 240. Garden Letters, 173-192 ; Letter
D'Este's Gardens, 179. to Dr. Browne, 173-182 ; Diary,
D'Oria, 179. 199-236 ; Letter to Earl of Sand-
De Vico's, 179. wich, 182-186 ; Miscellaneous
Democritus, 178. Writings, 173 n. ; of Sallets,
Depont, iSo. 173 m. ; Sylva, 187, 190 ; Hist,
Deptford, i36, 193. of Chalcography, 189.
Descartes, 11. Ezekiel, 116.
Diana Saguntina, 139.
Didymus, 99. Fanelli, 242.
Dioclesian, 7, 179. Famese Gardens, 179.
Diodati, 143, 146, 259. Fez, 181.
Diodorus, 05, 138, 178. Figs, 46, 64.
Diogenes Laertius, 15, 178. Flanders, 180, 185, 238.
Dioscorides, 89, 120, 121, 123, 131, Florence, 179, 222.
137. 140, 141, 143, 146, 259. Fontainebleau,
Formia, 179. 37, 38, i2o, 212.
Dolabella, 179.
Dorking, 200. Fox, Lady, 250.
Downe, Dr., 50. Sir F., 250.
Drusi, 179. France, 36, 37, 39, 40, 180.
Durdens, i8r. Franche Comte, 45.
Durer, A., 217. Francis I., 209.
268 INDEX
Herod, 137.
Frescati, 179.
Fresnes, Chasteau de, 180. Herodotus, 125
Froment, 180. Herrera, 185.
Hertfordshire, 50, 248.
Gaillon, 180. Hesperides, 24, 178.
Galen, 124, 131, 147, 148, 152. Hesychius, 128, 260
Garicius, 180. Hieron, 178.
Garlands, of, 151-157, 173 "• Hippocrates, 90, 111, 152.
.97. Hispania, Nova, 157, 181.
Gascony, 37. Hobbes, 11.
Gassendi, 76. Hofft,
Holbein,180.247.
Geneva, 150.
Genoa, 179, 220. Holland, 36, 40, 180.
Georges, 28, 31. Holstein, 181.
Germany, 180 Homer,
182. 24, 25, 97, 112, 114, 128,
Giusti's Gardens, 179, 236. Horace, 16, 18, 41, 62.
Gordian, 179.
Grafting, 134. Horimburg, 180.
Hosea, 119.
Observations on, 158-162.
Graham, Mr., 253. Howard, R., 250.
Grapes, 45. Howard's, 181.
Arboyse, 45. Hubert, 180.
Burgundy, 45. Hundius, 180.
Hussey, 249.
Chasselas, 45.
Frontignacs, 45. Hyde Park, 205.
Grizelin, 46. Imperiale Gardens, 179.
Muscat, 46.
India, 22, 123, 153, 157, 181.
Rhodes, 122. Isaiah, 121, 131.
Greece, 25, 26, 27, 59. Ispahan, 181.
Grogning, 181. Israelite, 121, 125.
Grotius, 146. Isslings, 180.
Guildford, 200. 247- ,
Italy, 27, 36, 38, 39, 124, 233, 237,
Guyse, 218.
Gardens in, 179.
Hackney, 238.
Haff, 200. Jacob, 137.
Hague, 180, 201. James, 114.
Ham, 247. Jardin Roy ale, 180, 203.
Hampton Court, 241. Jeremy, 143.
Hartlib, S., 192, 259. Jericho, 126, 138.
Harvey, Dr. W., 89 n. Jerome, 118.
Hatfield, 181. Jesuits, 180.
Hebrew, 146. Job, 115, 140, 149.
Hecla, 181. John, St., 124.
Heidelberg, 180, 181. Jonah, 118.
Henry II. of France, 7. Josephus, 95 n., 137, 142.
Henry IV., 209. Judsea, 117, 119, 131, 133, 137,
Heraclitus, 19. 138, 147.
 INDEX
Madrid, 37.
Jude, 114.
Junius, 146. Maecenas, 16, 17, 179.
Jupiter Thyraeus, 151. Mahometans, 157.
Limeneus, 151. Maimonides, 144, 260.
Justinus, 137, 229. Maison, President, 236.
Rustic, 192.
Kalcndarium Horiense, 70, 184, Maisons, iSo.
Mantua, 235.
186, 196. Marden, 235.
Kensington Palace, 241 n.
Kew, 247, 251, 255. Markham, &., 192.
King Charles, 241 n. Martial, 154, 179.
Kings, Book of, 128, 132. Marvell, A., 165-170.
Kingston, 200. The Garden, 165.
Kirby, 181. The Moiver, 169.
Masinissa, 178.
Mathaeo, 179.
Laertius, D., 15, 178.
Lamiani, 179. Matthew, St., 146.
Laocoon, 205, 227. Mattioli, 261.
Largus, 142, 262. Maturaea, 133, 138.
Lauderdale, Duke of, 247. Maurice, Count, 181.
Laurembergius, 13s, 149. May, Hugh,
Mazarin, 179. 245, 250.
Laurentine, G., 179.
Lazarolli, 57. Mecha, 138.
Leicester, Earl of, 238, 247. Media, 31, 33, 34.
Medicean, 179.
Leyden, 180.
Liancourt, 180 Medici, Mary di, 205, 213.
Liege, 180. Palazzo di, 222.
Lincolnshire, 185. Medina, 138.
Lisles, Lord, 247. Medon, 180.
Littleton, Sir C. , 254. Mexico, 55, 181.
Lobelius, 129, 260. Mickleham, 241.
Lodovisian, 179, 223. Mithridates, 178.
Loggan, 242 n. Mogul, Great, 181.
London, 39. Mollet, 1S1.
Longueville, 218. Molonists, 14.
Loraine, 180. Mondragone, 179.
Montalta, 179.
Loudon's, 242 n.
Louis XII., 220. Monte Cavallo, 224, 226.
Louvre, 203, 218. Montezuma, 55, 181.
Low Countries, 39. Montpellier, 180.
Lucretius, 15, 16, 18. More Park, xx, xxi, lxvi.
Luculla, 179. Morine, Mons., 217.
Lucullus, 7, 26. Morines, 180.
Luke, 132. Moor Park, xx, xxi, 50-53.
Luther, 143. Morland, Sir S., 244, 246, 251.
Luxemberg, 180, 213, 217. Moses, 114.
Lysander, 178. Mount Parnassus, 234.
Lyth Hill, 199. Munster, Bishop of, 43.
 270 INDEX
Peaches, 44.
Nancy, 180. Pears, 47.
Nanteuile, 180.
Naples, 124, 179, 243 n. Peiresc, 180.
Nautilus, 178. Pekin, 181.
Nebuchodonosor, 95, n6, 178. Pembroke, Earl, 240.
Nectarines, 45. Penshurst, 181, 238.
French, 45. Persia, 27, 29, 33, 34, 112, 181.
Murry, 45. Phavorinus, 146.
Negro, H. del, 179. Phenicia, 24.
Negrone, Palazzo, 220. Philo Juda:us, 122.
Nero, 8, 27. Philosophical Transactions, 192.
Nevers, 218. Philostratus, 151.
Nile, 125. Picardy, 180.
Nimrod, 95. Pidaux, 180.
Ninas, 7. Pierce, 240.
Nonesuch, 242. Pincius, Mons., 222.
Norfolk, 244. Pio, Cardinal, 179.
Normandy, 48. Pisa, 180.
Norwich, 162, 177. Pitti, Palazzo, 170.
Nova Hispania, 157. Piano/ a Royal Garden, 193-198.
Numa, 179, Plato, 11.
Numantia, 27. Platts, Sir Hugh, 192.
Numidia, 27. Plessis, du, 218.
Nysa, 178. Pliny, 90, 95, 121, 122, 124, 137,
139. 227.
223, *4°, J47. i54i 178, 17°. '91.
Of Earth and Vegetation, 243. Plums, 47.
Orange, Prince of, 38.
— - trees, 59, 60. Plutarch, 97 n.
d'Orias, Prince, 221. Poggio Gardens, 179.
Orleans, Duke of, 180, 213. Poictiers, 180.
Oroenendael, 180. Poliphele,
Pollux, 154.182.
Ovid, 94.
Oxford, 238, 242 n. Pompey, 17, 179.
Pontus, 27.
Padua, 180, 235. Porassen, 181.
Palais, Cardinal, 218. Porta, 98, 261.
Palissy, 192. Portugal, 38, 179.
Palladio, 191, 245. Pratohne, 233.
Pall Mall (Paille Maille), 218 «., Praxiteles, 126.
221. Pretor Hundius, 180.
Panchaia, 178. Privy Garden, 183.
Paradise, 21, 94, 125, 178. Prosper Alpinus, 125, 131, 138.
Paris, 180, 203, 205, 206, 236, 237. Psalms, 132, 139.
Parma, 236. Pythagoras, 18.
Paston, Mr., 173
Paul, St., 116, 129, 130, 134. ; Queen's Pine, 241.
Pausanias, 59, 138. Quincuncial Lozenge,- 87, 98, 99.
Pausilippe, 243. Quincunx, xxvi, 97, et seq.
 INDEX 271

8uintilian, 87, 100. Shakspeare,

Sheba, 137. 8.
uirinal Gardens, 179.
Sheen, 37, 45, 247 354.
Rabbinical Lexicon, 147. Sidney, Lady Dorothy, 338.
Rapinus, 190, 345. — — Sir Philip, i8s, 338.
—— Horiorum, 190, 245. Sion, 181.
Richelieu, 180, 207, 218, 220. Smith, Mr. R., 338.
Rincy, 180. Socrates, 10.
Roman Gardens, 179. Solomon, 96, 116, ir9, 129, 132
Rome, 25, 26, 27, 154, 208, 222,
227, 220, 232. 137, 178. Sir R,, 245.
Southwell,
Rookwood, Sir T., 243. Spain, 39, 180, 182, 184, 33i.
Rose, Mr., 241 n. Spanish seeds, 185.
Rosny, 180. Spencer, 183.
Royal, Jardin, 180. Spensherst, 181.
Royal Society, 245. Statius, 183.
Rubens, 213. Stidolph, Sir F., 341.
Ruel, 180, 207-208. Stoics, 12, 13.
Ryswick, 180. Strabo, 21, 23, 122, 138.
Stratton, 245.
Sabean Gardens, 178. Strozzi, Palazzo di, 223.
St. Cloe (Cloud), 180, 305. Suidas, 146.
St. Germain, 180, 205, 209, 213. Sunderland, Earl, 338.
St, James, 114. Lady, letter to, 186-189
St, Jude, 114. Surat, 181.
St. Matthew, 146. Surrey, 181, 300.
St. Omers, 185. Sutton in Shere, 349.
St. Paul, 116. Sydon, 178.
Salisburgh, 180. Sylla, 17.
SalUts, of, 173 *., 196. Sylva, 187, 19a
Sallust, 223. Syria, 37, 134.
Samos, 178. Syriac, 146.
Swallowfield, 353.
Sandwich, Earl of, 182-186.
Sayes Court, 186, 339. Sweden, 181.
Scaliger, 140.
Schamachie, iSr. Tabernacle, too,
Scholtzius, 1 80. Tarentine Gardens, 179.
Tarquin, 179.
Scipio, 7, 179.
Scnbonius Largus, 143, 362. Temple, Sir Wm., 347, 254.
Scripture, Gardens in, 183. Theocritus, 101.
— — Plants in, 1 13-150. Theophrastus, 89, 100, 120, 129,
Seine, 337. 13*. 134, i35i 13^ i37i 138, i4'i
Semir&mis, 7, 22, 95, 178. 147. i54i 178.
Seneca, 170. Thuilleries, 180, 304-305.
Seraglio, 181. Timplan, 181.
Severus, 124. Tivoli,
Titus's r79-
Baths, 327-338.
Sevile, 38.
Sfondrati, 180 Toledo, 180.
272 INDEX
Tombe, Mr., 239. Villa Borghese, 224, 229.
Laura, 178.
Tours, 221.
Transactions, Philosophical, 192. Villiers, 180.
Vincenza, 235.
Tremellius, 119, 143 150.
Tuke, Sir B., 247. Virgil, _ 16, 28, 29, 31, 70, 75, 100.
Tunis, 181. Vitruvius, 108.
Turkey, Garden in, 181. Vraneburgh, 181.
Tusculum, 179. Vratislauia, 181.
Tusser, 192.
Vulgar Errours (Browne's), 176.
Tyber, 233.
Wadhain College, 239, 242.
Ulmarini, Count, 235. Warsovia, 181.
Gardens, 179. Watts, Mr., 252.
Ulysses, 178. Whitehall, 183.
Upcott, 173 n. Wilkins, Dr., 239.
Urbino, Duke of, 179. Wilton, 240.
Wiltshire, 40.
Vacenza, 179. Windsor, 250.
Valerie, 180. Wood, Anth. , 242 «.
Van Leyden, 217. Worcester Park, 243.
Varro, 41, 98, 100, 191, 249. 249.
Wotton, 173 «., 188, 192, 199, 237,
Vatican, 224, 227.
Veau, de, 218. Wotton, Mr., Letter to, 190-192.
Vendome, 218.
Verona, 179, 236. Xenophon, 21, 97.
Verrio, Signor, 250.
Veslingius, 235. Zaccheus, 133.
Zoroaster, 95.
Vienna, 180.

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Sir William Temple upon
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(Essays on gardens. ••)

73